065-071 » assign to oblivion / part iii

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 065-071
WHAT: The residents of Mathias reunite under unnerving conditions.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross "Outside"

DAY 065-071
ASSIGN TO OBLIVION
“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes
place in the interim, there are some things we can never
assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.”
— Haruki Murakami

Only two days have passed since the town was fractured, leaving residents cut off from those they'd come to know and even care for. A mere two days of wandering the new streets, uncovering more secrets that continue to make little sense of this strange place. Two days with sunrises, sunsets, and nights that seem like any other.

And yet.

When residents wake on this third day, they will find that much has changed. All around them, wherever they may be, there are signs that time has passed without them. Dust covers everything, indoors and out, even areas that were spotlessly clean seemingly hours ago. The residents themselves are covered as well, dust clinging to their hair, skin, and clothing—

Clothing that they may not have been wearing when they went to sleep. Each resident, regardless of the state they were in previously, is now clad in a pair of white pajamas, with long pants and button-up shirts. Those who thoroughly explored Baneberry Hall will easily recognize these articles as identical to those well-stocked in the decaying great house. On top of this, the clothes they wore from home have disappeared, along with anything else they may have brought with them when they arrived or items from home that have been found within the borders of Mathias.

There is no sign that anyone has entered their place of shelter, nor is there any sign of what may have been done with these items or how they came to be wearing these clothes. The dust all around them is undisturbed, almost as if they had been sleeping there for quite some time, though it seems impossible for such a thing to have occurred naturally.


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. They, too, are bereft of any items from home and clothed in the identical white pajamas. 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.

---

SUMMERTIME
— When summer arrives, so too does an outdoor stand in front of the General Store. Sporting a handpainted sign proclaiming Whateley Farm, the stand is overflowing with a variety of produce: berries, plums, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, green beans, leeks, onions, peppers, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, and garlic bulbs. These do not replace the produce offerings normally found inside the market, but they do behave strangely. The stand replenishes sporadically, sometimes every other day or every five days. There is no discernible pattern to when it replenishes, nor is there any sign of how it came to be there at all.

— With the now-complete reverse change of season, much of the autumn debris has cleared from around town. Only a few stray leaves and fallen branches remain, their crisp colors at odds with the warm summer days. The forest has also cleared of much of the fall detritus, making it easier to both follow the paths and potentially spy things that might be out of the ordinary.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER Summer has arrived in Mathias, bringing with it warm days that average 70°F and comfortably cool nights. The skies are clear throughout the week save for Day 68 when a light rain falls from a grey sky throughout the day.

— THE FOG has maintained its 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! Max Guevara and Liz Brundy have disappeared, and now that everyone is back together, residents will notice that Yennefer, Number Five, and Tony Stark have also vanished.

— 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

— 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 My non-RP life is busy and chaotic and I continue to ask for your forgiveness and understanding as game things continue to be slower, as I cannot promise timely mod responses beyond weekends and even that is not wholly guaranteed.

— ITEMS FROM HOME All items from home that characters would normally possess have vanished for this log and will return in the next. This includes clothing and possessions they had when they arrived in Mathias, items that were found in the rain, and items that were found in Baneberry Hall and removed from the property. Items from home that were left behind by other characters no longer in the game have also vanished. (All other items and clothing still remain, it is only items from characters' homes that have disappeared.)

— BANEBERRY ITEMS The items from home that were not removed from Baneberry Hall in the last log have vanished from the property. These items will not reappear in the next log. (Please be sure to comment in the appropriate spot on those logs about the state of your character's item for inventory purposes, ie whether they were removed from the property or left behind.)

— 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 points, not just those that occur in an inbox thread — this applies to both AC and AP totals. This adjustment is an extension of what has been in place since the start of the game: that all dialogue-only inbox tags counted for a half-point. Since such tags have occurred regularly in log threads as well, the half-point status is simply being extended to all tags regardless of location in order to be fairer in point distribution. (Examples will be provided in the AC post to assist with proper counting.)

navigation | faq | locations | report updates

Comments

[bardish]

Jeff exhales, damn near going boneless in his relief. With the way that puppet's pointy little ears are lodged into the tree, he doesn't even want to think about how badly he could've hurt the young man.

"Good," he nods, looking at the man, then the tree, letting out a nervous, breathless laugh. "That was fucking close."

Jeff can't help but eye the puppet with some regret, and it's not just because he'd very nearly used it as a weapon against an innocent bystander. He'd kind of grown fond of the weird little thing. Maybe it won't be hard to get it out of the tree... He walks over to it, giving it an experimental tug. It takes a little bit of wiggling, a little bit of persuasion, but he manages to dislodge the puppet without much fuss.

"Um. It normally doesn't..." He clears his throat and tries again, shooting the other man an apologetic smile. "I usually have a lot more control than that. I swear I'm not some kind of puppet throwing maniac."

[twowaypath]

Tai is likewise trying not to think about what that would have felt like if it had actually hit him. Luckily for the both of them, it didn't.

He replies with a slight nod, noting that the explanation implies that while what just happened might be strange, this man moving puppets in the way he just had been likely isn't. Either way, Tai knows something about powers being off here.

"The Force seems strange in this place," he says understandingly, assuming the other shares enough of his frame of reference for that comment to make sense. He's never seen someone work with the Force in exactly the way the other man was doing, but surely it was some form of that.

[bardish]

The Force? Jeff may not know exactly what he's talking about, but it's said with the same weight, the same significance, as Jeff lends the Gift, so he... kind of gets the gist, he figures. Like Kirigan, this man might be from another world where magic is known and practiced, if under a different name.

Force, Gift, it may well all be the same thing, right?

"Yeah..." He smiles ruefully, the current state of magic being something of a massive sore point. "It feels like... like it's out of frequency, right?" That's how it is for Jeff, anyway. The Gift, shrieking behind a layer of static.

"Oh!" Seeming to remember his manners, Jeff extends his free hand. "I'm Jeff, by the way."

[twowaypath]

Out of frequency seems like an odd way to put it, but it's descriptive enough. He nods.

Shaking the offered hand, he replies, "I'm Tai." It's a little strange, he thinks, just how often he's introduced himself in the past couple days. Even though he hasn't met all that many people here, he's still used to mostly seeing the same few day in and day out. He supposes this place will be the same, eventually, but right now, everything here is still very new.

[bardish]

He's been in much the same boat, having only been in town a few days longer than Tai. Long enough to have something of a home base, but not enough to have any sort of grounding in the little community of survivors here. Jeff's still very much a stranger to Mathias, enough that he doesn't even know if Tai is new here, or just somebody he hasn't bumped into yet.

"Full disclosure, we don't... call it the Force, where I'm from." He sounds almost apologetic as he admits it. But fuck, he doesn't want to get the guy's hopes up, letting him think they're from the same world or anything. It's been rough enough for him, talking about the Gift and just getting blank stares in return. Fucking alienating. "We call it the Gift. I don't even know if we're talking about the same thing, or two totally different things or--" He cuts himself off with a faint smile. "Force, Gift. It just felt familiar, the way you said it."

[twowaypath]

"Ah," he sags just a bit with that acknowledgement. He can appreciate the honesty, even if that is disappointing. Everything here is so unfamiliar that it was nice to have someone seem to recognise something. Still, it sounds like it could be the same thing, just called something different.

"The Force is an energy that connects everything. Is that the same with your Gift?"