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.)

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Comments

[abrightboy]

“Oh! When everyone was split up. That happens sometimes,” Malcolm explains.

[twowaypath]

"Does that happen often?" He'd gotten the impression it wasn't the first time, but he doesn't really know more that that, or have any idea how it works. "Where did everyone else go?"

[abrightboy]

“It’s always different, but from what I’ve been able to tell… we were all here this time. Just. Different heres,” he explains with a wince.

[twowaypath]

"Like there being different Earths," he concludes, with a likewise pained expression. He doesn't know how to make sense of any of that. He's used to there being a lot of different planets, but so far as he's been aware up until now, there's only been one of each of them. Trying to think about that in any kind of detail makes his head hurt.

And maybe it's the aversion to the difficulty of that subject that makes him finally realise- "My name is Tai, by the way. Sorry I didn't think to say that before."

[abrightboy]

“Oh, I th…” He pauses. “What’s ‘adjedai’?” he asks.

[twowaypath]

"...ah." With that, he suddenly understands the earlier exchange. His lips turn to a thoughtful frown as he tries to think of the best explanation for someone with that little of a frame of reference. He's used to people thinking Jedi don't exist, but he's still definitely not used to being here where nobody seems to have heard of them at all.

"I guess you would say Jedi use magic, where I'm from." It's enough of an oversimplification to leave a bad taste in his mouth, but it's a place to start. He shakes his head slightly. "It's more than that. It's a way of life."

[abrightboy]

“…Like a religion based around magic?” he asks with interest. He’s seen some magic users since he got to Mathias, but not… this.

[twowaypath]

He nods. As oversimplifications go, that's not a bad one.

"Based on the Force, yes." But he's going to have to explain that, too, he can tell. "It's... an energy, that connects everything in the universe. Me. You. The rocks." He makes a vague gesture with one hand to the pebbles that had been floating earlier.

"But it's strange here." He sighs. He may appear very calm, but really, it's troubling, and trying to study it further isn't getting him anywhere. "Maybe there being more than one 'here' has something to do with that."

[abrightboy]

That does pique Malcolm’s interest.

“Strange how? Weaker?”

[twowaypath]

Another nod. "Much weaker." Had he been at home

(home... a more tumultuous thought than he knows how to deal with, after everything that happened just before he arrived here, and maybe a hint of something like grief makes the briefest pass over his features as he makes that mental comparison)

it's likely he would have been floating a moment ago along with the pebbles. But it's not just that.

"And... wrong, somehow. It's hard to describe."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, drawing closer. “I know some other people here who use magic or have… special abilities and they find the same thing. They can’t quite access it or it’s weak or they can’t do everything they normally can.”

[twowaypath]

"I talked to someone else who said the same thing." Jeff had called it 'out of frequency,' which is probably a good enough description of the wrongness Tai perceives.

"It's strange. There are places where I'm from where the Force feels stronger, but I've never been anywhere it was this weak." He looks sad when he says that, then shakes his head slightly. "But then, I also never knew the places any of the rest of you came from existed until now." Maybe this is normal for Earth, or something like it. He wouldn't be able to say.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm met someone who didn't know the places that anyone was from but understood their spoken language before. He looks at Tai for a moment, then says "Come with me," and leads him to the Town Hall.

He gestures to a note on the Bulletin Board.



"Do you recognize this writing?"

[twowaypath]

He doesn't have the vaguest idea what Malcolm wants to show him, but he follows. He suddenly understands when he sees the writing in question. Yes, it's very familiar, and the message is one he might have written with the same curiosity.

"It's Aurebesh." He turns his gaze back to Malcolm. "Who wrote this?"

[abrightboy]

“I think it was a girl named Rey who used to be here. She wasn’t from Earth. My friend has a drawing of her. He… found her body when he arrived. She hasn’t come back. Not all the dead do,” he explains. “When I met her, she was looking for books in her language in the library but didn’t find any.”

[twowaypath]

"...ah." So someone from his world had been here, but not anymore. It takes him a moment to get past the disappointment of that and the inherent reaction he has to the mention of finding a body to understand the rest of that. He blinks.

"Wait, people who die here come back?" Not always, but sometimes? The ghosts of Jedi have been known to appear where he's from, but he somehow suspects that wasn't how it was meant.

[abrightboy]

"Sometimes. And sometimes people go missing, but then they come back. And sometimes they don't."

He watches Tai for a moment.

"It's part of the mechanism that keeps us off balance here."

[twowaypath]

Off balance is certainly a word for how Tai feels. And how he's felt the whole time he's been here, considering he still wonders whether he should have been dead, himself, before he arrived.

"How? Why?" He doesn't really expect Malcolm to have answers, with how much of a mystery things here have been to everyone he's met so far. But there are just so many questions.

[abrightboy]

"None of us knows," Malcolm admits. "We all just... woke up here. We've had no contact with anyone controlling the place."

A beat.

"Can I ask you something?"

[twowaypath]

It's frustrating, being so clueless. That brief moment of silence is spent in his own thoughts about just how much none of them know.

The question draws his attention again and his eyebrows raise curiously. "Go ahead."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gestures to the note.

"What does it say?"

[twowaypath]

That earns the slightest hint of a chuckle.

"It's not anything exciting. It says, 'Can anyone else read this?'" The smile starts to fade as he asks, "Am I really the only person who's been able to?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm presses his lips together and nods grimly.

“Yeah. Sorry.” He glances around. “Listen, do you want a cup of tea or something?”

[twowaypath]

A cup of tea, honestly, sounds like exactly what he needs right now. It feels like he gets just a little more shaken every time he learns something new here.

"Yeah, that sounds nice."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm tilts his head towards the door before leading the way, heading them towards Philips Drive.

“So if you’re from the same place as her, you have, like, space travel and stuff, right? Have you ever seen anything like this place?”