villagelogs | 072-078 » pages of possible futures

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 072-078
WHAT: The future is set in motion once more.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here! Next log will be the weekend of July 31.
MOD NOTE: The week did not go as planned. Apologies for the delay on this log and thank you for your patience!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Marco Beltrami "Bad Omens"

DAY 072
“The visions are fragmented and a dark cloud spreads
like spilt ink across the pages of possible futures.”
— Garth Nix
Blue skies greet residents on this bright new morning filled with summer sunshine. It's a day when birds would normally be singing, when there would be boats taken out on the water, children laughing and running through the streets. But in Mathias there is only silence, eerie and almost deafening in its absoluteness, and those blue skies do not stretch on forever. Far off on the horizon are dark clouds stretching ominously in all directions, never moving closer or farther away. They are always there, dark and angry, as if waiting... For what, who can say, but they will remain there for the days going forward, circling the town like a shark circles a meal.

Despite that dreadful darkness in the distance, there is some good news. Residents will also wake to find that their previously missing belongings have returned to them. Clothing and other personal effects are right where they should have been, as if they have always been there, and there is no sign of them having been returned by someone or something. They're just there.

That is, however, the extent of the good news. Residents who visit the Town Hall will find the bulletin board much changed, and those who have thrown caution to the wind and made use the sedatives found within Baneberry Hall will begin to find themselves changing as well. They are easily distracted while awake and plagued by nightmares while asleep. They dream of Mathias burning, fire spreading from the east until it consumes everything in its path. With increasing intensity as the week continues, they will wake with terror gripping their chests and sweat covering their too-hot skin.

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.

DAY 073-075
With those dark clouds still hanging on the horizon, some residents may find themselves watching the ocean a little more closely, searching for signs of whatever it is they are beginning to sense is approaching. If they do, they will find those signs, for every so often a dark shape will appear from out of the water before disappearing a few moments later. Residents are welcome to try getting a better look at those shapes, though moving to higher vantage points will be ineffective and swimming may not be the best investigation method.

Nightfall strengthens the sense of that elusive something. Though nothing can be seen in the darkness, there is something out there. They can feel it when they are outside themselves, a heavy presence that their animal instincts warn them against, urging them to flee to safety indoors. But once inside, they can hear whatever is out there in the night, the sounds horrifying and yet utterly indescribable and beyond the limits of their perception.

There is no way to glimpse what might be making those sounds, nor is there any way to properly record them, though attempts may be made to do so.

DAY 076-077
The strange occurrences of recent days continue as something attempts to lead residents out into the southern forest should they venture within view of the treeline. Unrecognizable voices may call out incoherently or the sounds of someone moving through the trees may pull at their attention. Or, perhaps, a dark figure entering the forest will catch their eye, pulling them to follow the possibly feminine figure with no discernible characteristics.

Whatever it is, it will lead them along the paths or even away from their relative safety, winding this way and that until they're completely lost within the expanse of sun-dappled trees that seem innocent and threatening at the same time. There is nothing left to do but continue following that figure that is always just ahead at the edge of sight.

Eventually, the trees stop and there is a stretch of clearing, the sky a crisp blue overhead, sun shining down and yet—

That dark figure is still shrouded in shadow, as are the other four that have joined it. All slight with long hair, something feminine in the way they stand with hands held out at their sides, facing outward in a line along the edge of the ravine that borders the township, though for some reason their features cannot be focused on enough for true comprehension. They stand there in silence as if waiting, so close to the edge that a strong wind could easily knock them over into oblivion. A concerned resident might try to stop them; a curious one might try to finally get a better look at the figures that led them to this place. Regardless of the reason, any movement into the clearing toward them will end in the same result.

All five figures step forward as one and disappear into the nothingness below.

The ravine so deep that the bottom cannot be seen and wide enough that the other side is tantalizingly out of reach. At first, there is the sense that safety is just beyond if only they could get there, but with that sensation is also the knowledge that if they stay here, death will be a certainty. The edge seems unsteady, like getting too close would set it crumbling and send them tumbling into that as well...

That is when those who do venture to the edge see the truth of the ravine and what lies beyond it: nothing. There is a neverending dark nothingness below and beyond this ravine, beyond this town, and there is something staring back from within the dark.

DAY 078
As morning arrives in Mathias, so too does the storm. Those clouds that hovered in the distance move in quickly, plunging the town into a twilight-like darkness. The rumbling that breaks the silence is like that of a thunderstorm but infinitely more ominous, signaling something approaching that is not meant for the world of man. Within just a few minutes, the residents will learn why as lightning arcs across the sky, the cracks of powerful energy echoing through the air. Those branching spikes at first remain in the sky, but then suddenly they crash down to meet the earth, striking the Lighthouse. The sound of splintering wood and pierced metal fills the air, followed moments later by the roaring crackle of a fire raging into existence. Those cracks and crashes continue as the lightning moves inward, hitting the forest, the beach, and the Grey Gull before moving down Phillips Drive to attack the homes left rotting by time.

While the lightning eventually retreats to the sky, the fire spreads with purpose. It leaps from building to building, consuming everything in its path. It is a living, breathing thing driven by a need to devour. There is no stopping or controlling the almost sentient entity, for it does not behave as fire normally would — it skips buildings before doubling back, burns when there's nothing to fuel it, and seems to almost actively pursue residents fleeing to safety. Ultimately, the fire consumes everything east of the Library, from Jackson Boulevard to the beach and the northeastern forest to the Lighthouse; for an unknown reason, it does not venture farther inland than this.

Ash falls from the sky like snow throughout the town as the eastern half of Mathias glows a terrifying raging red. Residents may seek sanctuary in businesses along the square or in areas in the western half of the town, though the latter will not be without its own risks and consequences.

SANITY LOSS

There are multiple opportunities for sanity loss within this log. All instances of such should be reported before the next log.
— BANEBERRY SEDATIVES These will effect all who have taken them, regardless of type, quantity, or frequency, until the storm on day 78. Each night of nightmares will result in 1 point of sanity loss for a potential total loss of 6 points.

— FIGURES IN THE FOREST All who witness the figures jump into ravine will suffer 3 points of sanity loss.

— SEEING BEYOND THE RAVINE Any who see the truth of what is beyond the ravine will suffer 7 points of sanity loss that cannot be recovered. Additionally, any Madness that results from this sanity loss begins immediately.

— DEATH BY FIRE All who are killed by the fire lose 3 sanity points and gain the Madness pyrophobia for seven days, which should be reported. The pyrophobia will be experienced at an intensive level for the duration of the Madness.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER Summer has arrived in Mathias, bringing with it warm days that average 70°F and comfortably cool nights.

— THE FOG has maintained its recent 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 have ceased for the moment but they're sure to begin again soon.

OOC NOTES

— ENDGAME We are officially heading into endgame. Over the next few months, things will begin ramping up and moving toward the always planned conclusion, with the last log projected to go up between the end of October and middle of December.

What does this mean? Essentially, hopefully, this will mean more opportunities to dig into the mysteries and lore of the game, as well as more chances for your characters to creep toward insanity. However, how things progress and what information comes to light will depend upon character interaction with the setting and involvement with the mysteries of Mathias.

— ITEMS FROM HOME All items from home have returned to the exact state and location in which they were last seen. This includes all clothing and possessions they had on their person when they arrived in Mathias (or, for arrivals in the previous log, what they should have had). Items from home that were left behind by other characters no longer in the game have also returned.

— THE FIRE A rough representation of where the fire spreads is available over here.

— REMINDER There are a lot of moving parts to this log, as there will be for all logs going forward. Read the narrative and all OOC notes thoroughly and carefully. Ask questions if something is not clear, but please also look through questions others have asked for further clarification.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ellie shrugs the shoulder that's further from him. She gets it; he's trying to say something that will somehow make this less fucking horrible, but what is there? Whatever those things are, they're gone. They jumped off the edge of the world. That sounds batshit insane, but that's what it seemed like, watching them. She didn't stick around to follow them, to look over the ravine and see what was there. It's just a goddamn ravine, isn't it? And they were just shadows of people.

But she knows, somehow, that they weren't just regular people, just like this whole whack job town isn't normal. If she'd have stayed, she doesn't know what would have happened. She just knows something is more fucked than usual and she's fine not having looked after them.

She takes a deep breath.

"I know you weren't here like the very first day," she says. "When we all woke up on the beach and it was storming and shit."

She's not sure when Klaus got here, though it was early on, but not that first day. There weren't many of them then, and most of the ones that were here then are gone now.

"I seriously thought it would just be a few days, you know? We'd just find whoever the fuck was responsible and fuck them up. Kill them if we had to. Get out. But now…I dunno. If they just wanted to kill us for good, they could have done it. But I don't think they're gonna let us live, either. I can't die until I get home, but the longer we're here, the more impossible that seems. How do we fight shadows like that, man? I don't come from some psycho place with magic and time travel and sci-fi shit." Okay, so she comes from some psycho place where the world almost ended, but that feels different to her.

"Five had already been here almost two weeks by the time I got here." he admits, confirming that she was right that he'd been later than the first lot of them.

He could understand that. He definitely didn't think he'd be here as long as he has been. He thought it would be easy– Five would figure out the right calculations, get his jump right, and they'd all disappear from this place in one, mildly unpleasant blink that was way better to suffer than everything they've had to go through here.

"I don't know... 'cuz whatever they are, it's not like anything I've seen before. You know, in the beginning, I thought... you know, they're ghosts. That's my thing, I could totally handle it, but–" he scoffs and shakes his head.

"If they are some kind of spirits, they aren't the kind I can commune with. I never felt anything from any of the things I've tried shit with, except that shadow guy from like– god, it feels like it was a year ago now... something was really wrong, there. Whatever it is, it's not right. It's not dead, it's worse, it– I've had nightmares ever since that day. I just stopped trying after that. Whatever it is that roams this town isn't worth the ways they fuck me up when I try to use my powers on them."

"Me and Five got here like the same day," she says. "The first day." She remembers. They met in the storm. Five was the second person she met here. God, she misses him. She has no idea what it must be like for Klaus, to lose his little brother like that. Jesus. This whole place is a shitshow.

She lets him talk, but she loses the thread of it somewhere because she gets hung up on it. Klaus just goes on like what he's saying is totally normal, but to Ellie, it sounds absolutely batshit.

"Wait, back the fuck up, you can talk to ghosts? Like ghosts. Like actual people who died?"

Of course she doesn't believe in ghosts and shit like that, but the way he says it, she doesn't think he's lying either. And she knows what Five can do. She's experienced that whole teleporting thing, as fucking disorienting as that was. And Yennefer can outright do magic. So all right, sure, fucking fine, maybe there are real ghosts and Klaus can talk to them. Why not, at this point.

"But these shadow people, they're not...Christ, I don't know. They're not the ghosts of people who died here, that's what you're saying?"

"I miss him," he mutters quietly, fidgeting with a loose string on his shirt. He'd had an absolute, utter meltdown over it when he realized he was really gone, and not just stuck in limbo-Mathias like the rest of them when they all got split up the last time.

He nods a little. "Yeah, I know, crazy. But it's true." He figures she isn't gonna fight him on it at this stage. Too many people in this town do weird shit for her to doubt it too much by now.

"I don't know what they are," he shakes his head. "I can't interact with them the way I can with ghosts back home."

072-078 » pages of possible futures

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