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

[villagemod]

WHO: Group C 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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Comments

[confractus]

That's a pretty open ended question.

[ Like, really, she could be asking how about just about anything here, and Billy couldn't answer any of it anyway.

But he sees the look on her face, and he misinterprets it, because he doesn't know her history with the guy looks like him. As far as Billy's concerned, she's just a person who's looked at his face and is about as horrified by it as he is (well, not really, no one could ever be more disgusted with the way he looks then he does), and Billy clenches his jaw a bit.

The anger that threatens to bubble up subsides a bit, and he takes a deep breath. ]

You care to elaborate?

[darkestlights]

[ The more he speaks, the more clarity doesn't come to the situation. It's confusing and unlike anything she's ever experienced. Twins? Could it be possible? But he wasn't Ravkan. She'd never even heard that accent before. And the scarring... It sets him apart in a way she shouldn't be grateful for. That seems cruel. ]

You-- you bear his face.

[ Her tone steels a bit, trying again as she flexes her fingers -- almost readying for a fight if it comes to blows. ]

How?

[confractus]

[ Oh, great. Billy wonders if this is going to be every first meeting he has here, someone pointing out the painfully obvious. ]

I can't even pretend to know.

[ But he'd like to know, and he'd like to give the guy the same facial treatment just to even the score. Billy rolls his shoulders a bit. ]

I'm going to guess you and he don't get along very well, do you?

[darkestlights]

[ The deal she'd struck with him rings in her ear, reminding her to hold her tongue and have care of how she speaks when it comes to Kirigan. ]

No, I can't say the General and I see eye to eye on much.

[ Her hands relax a bit, though the tension in her shoulders stay. Because weird. This is weird. His accent is weird. Something clicks. ]

But you two have already met. So... who are you?

[confractus]

[ The General. Billy adds that to the apparently never ending list of names the guy has, and where he thought Darkling was a pretty dumb name, The General rubs him the wrong way. Does that make him a military man, too? ]

Billy. Russo. Never quite made it to the rank of General myself but I never really wanted to, either.

[darkestlights]

[ It should rub him the wrong way. And if Billy asked her anything, she'd have to walk the very fine line of not outing him, but also not doing much to offer reassurances. Kirigan is dangerous when he chooses to be and as easily as he'd blinded her by playing into her own weaknesses, she'd learned. She'd grown. She'd failed. And she had tried again. ]

Alina Starkov... So, you were also in the military? But not in Ravka. [ Because word would have traveled quickly about someone sharing the face of Kirigan without his consent. ]

[confractus]

United States Marines. I consider myself a pretty smart guy but I've never heard of Ravka. Where's that, Eastern Europe or something?

[ There are plenty of little countries out that way that are military based and purposely stay off the radar. She doesn't really seem Eastern European, though, and neither does that Kirigan guy. ]

[darkestlights]

What's Eastern Europe? [ And for that matter-- ] United States?

[ He said a lot of words that just didn't make sense. While she wasn't the most traveled, being a cartographer she had to know a few things about geography. Her jaw is kind of slack as she stares at him, confusion evident on her face.

Help her make it make sense. Because what? ]

[confractus]

... You're kidding, right?

[ Billy isn't usually incredulous, but he finds it hard to believe that anyone could be from anywhere in the world so sheltered that they've never heard of the United States. ]

You know - America? Land of the free, home of the brave?

[darkestlights]

No, never heard of it. I know there are places we haven't possibly explored beyond the True Sea, but nothing that's apparently so well known. Certainly nothing truly free.

[ You sound ridiculous, Billy. ]

Any country that describes themselves so confidently often are one to approach with an air of caution.

[confractus]

[ She's not wrong. Americans as a whole are seen as a joke for the most part, but there's a lot of danger lurking underneath that. Billy's seen it first hand. Billy's been part of it first hand. ]

You don't have TVs in Ravka?

[ He knows there are countries that prohibit American media, but that's not really an excuse to not know about it. ]

What's the biggest country near you? Russia? China?

[darkestlights]

What's a TV? [ And an even more important question-- ] I take it those are places? Never heard of them.

[ Yyyyyyyeah, something tells her that her confusion is just going to continue to circle the drain. So, she looks for a writing utensil and some paper, digging through drawers and pulling a spare pencil out of her pocket when she has no luck. She might realize later, once someone explains asylums to her, why she couldn't find a pen. Quickly, she begins to sketch out a map of Ravka and its neighboring countries, brows knit with concentration before handing it over. ]

Ravka - with Fjerda to the north and Shu Han to the south, all split by the Fold.

[confractus]

[ Billy looks at the map she's hastily drawn, trying to piece together anything about that might seem familiar. Unfortunately, he was never exactly scholarly, and his knowledge of geography extends to only what he needed to know - the Americas, mostly, some of Europe, and a lot of the Middle East.

But the thought occurs to him that she might be from somewhere else all together. That's becoming a pretty common thing these days, it seems, and why should this place just stick to the world as Billy knows it? ]

I'm starting to think where I'm from is very different than where you're from.

[darkestlights]

[ Yeah, it's got quite a bit to try and process, Alina already struggling with the concept of being trapped in a city she's never heard of with strangers. Sighing, she brushes her hand through her hair, shrugging slightly. ]

I doubt we'll get much accomplished trying to find a commonality between our worlds. But... Perhaps you can answer a question for me. Do you know what this place is?

[ She hasn't been able to answer that question on her own, only getting as far as prison but not. ]

cw: mention of drug addiction

[confractus]

This place? [ Billy motions wide, referring to Mathias township as a whole. ] Or ... This place?

[ The latter, of course, meaning the manor they're standing in.

He glances around for a moment, as if he's not really sure (though he's pretty sure), taking it all in with an observant gaze. ]

Some sort of home for troubled people, I'm guessing. Pretty nice digs, really. My mom was in a place like this, not as fancy but same idea. Drug addiction, really messed her up mentally.

[darkestlights]

[ She nods at the second this place, her expression growing into one of horror. She was familiar enough with the concept of addiction, but trapping them all in one place? She approaches this with an attempt at delicacy she's not fully capable of yet, making an effort to not offend given what he disclosed. ]

So a glorified prison? Better linens, but bars on the windows still. [ Her eyes linger on a set of restraints near by, her imagination beginning to take off -- assuming a distinct lack of kindness to the residents. It's awful. It's all awful. ]

Is this... Is this common practice where you're from?

[confractus]

[ He follows her gaze, then shifts his eyes back to her, eyebrows raised a bit. ]

Some people are a danger to others. Or worse, a danger to themselves.

[ Was his mom ever a danger to anyone? Maybe not, but Billy hadn't hesitated at the opportunity to slap her in a hospice where he could show her the cruelty she left him with. ]

Sometimes, places like these are the only places they're welcome.