nightlogs | ❅ SHITTY LITTLE TOWN ❅ PART 2

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dan sagittarius

❅ SHITTY LITTLE TOWN ❅ PART 2

SHITTY LITTLE TOWN ❅ PART 2

There's an article in the local paper, but word travels through the town hours before the first newspaper hits a doorstep: a man went missing down the mine, and they couldn’t even retrieve his body for his wife to bury. The official story is that there was a freak cave-in while the night crew was working, that no amount of preparation or technology could have prevented the act of God that left one of the arterials from the main mining cavern obstructed. Given that it was the night crew, there was only one witness, and he was violating protocol and too far down another arterial to hear or see what happened; because Goluboy has a zero-tolerance policy for breaking protocols, he fired the surviving miner. Goluboy has informed the newspaper that there will be no further efforts to recover the body.

Thus, two events are happening in town this weekend: Ms. Cygne’s debut ball, and a protest against the mining conditions outside the mouth of the mines.

Out in the woods, the fog has been thick to the point where subsistence hunters can’t venture in more than a few yards, and there seem to be strange sounds, almost like music, soft tank drums and ringing, emanating from the murk. It almost feels like the menace of the woods is...encroaching.

PROMPTS

a) PROTEST OUTSIDE THE MINE

The rage at Goluboy has been a long time brewing, but the people who live in his apartments wisely don’t appear at the protest. Instead, it’s all about twenty people who have just managed to avoid being dependent on Goluboy’s grace who have shown up with posterboards and a loudspeaker, rallying during the miners’ workday. This was all coordinated the day before my word of mouth, and it isn’t particularly well organized; people frequently end up blocking the mining equipment, and the foreman shouts at them to stay away from dangerous areas with marginal success. The three people with loudspeakers end up talking over each other and the chants are piecemeal and overlapping; however, the fact that people are upset about the perceived lack of safety for the miners and particularly for the abandonment of the missing miner’s body. Bring Him Home is the main chant and the only one that seems to get any muscle to it. The fired miner seems to be the person leading the most vocal chants.

The administrative staff from MineCorp have been asked to come field complaints from the protesters, armed with nothing but some talking points from the MineCorp mission statement (something something synergized comparative advantage for diversified innovative solutions something something labor is our most precious resource yada yada). One scruffy man seems to have hijacked the protest with his loudspeaker and is rambling about the animal maulings in the woods. At some point, Goluboy arrives in his armored Ford F-250. He calls over his foreman and has an annoyed conversation, and then he gets out, bodyguard looming behind him, to talk to individuals, putting on an evidently forced smile with gritted teeth.

b) DEBUT BALL

Ms. Cygne’s debut ball at her mansion is the event of the year, with all the lavishness than this sort of town can muster; beautiful dresses, a chocolate fountain, gift bags with expensive accessories and bonbons, fine sparkling wines, and invitations embossed with gold leaf. Plenty of the little treats are the sort that were presumed extinct in this town; no one’s seen a pair of Gucci sunnies or eaten a Ghirardelli’s in years here.

Most of the festivities take place in the massive ballroom that anchors the mansion, and they spill out into the lawn, where Ms. Cygne has insisted on a sit-down dinner rather than a “ghastly” buffet. The lady of the hour is quite active, making sure to check in with every single person at least once to make sure she’s getting praised for her hosting skills and getting a good look at every youth who’s appeared. The youths themselves have been pressured, by family members, teachers or Ms. Cygne herself, to present themselves as elegantly and politely as possible, and to make a “good showing” at their first event as a notable, respectable young person who may be a contender for Ms. Cygne’s prestigious scholarship.

At the table, people rub elbows with people they may not necessarily speak to otherwise, all brought together by the commonality of being someone Ms. Cygne has deemed noteworthy. Almost nobody allows themselves to get too inebriated, but one woman has a bit too much champagne and begins to cry at the dinner table; her friend, another woman in her thirties, ushers her to the powder room, where she composes herself while everyone awkwardly changes the subject. A few people do mannered waltzes in the ballroom, and out on the lawn, people mingle and make toasts.

c) EXPLORE ELSEWHERE [Link]

OOC: Please feel free to thread with each other at any location in the town. Available NPCs are bolded. Please indicate in bold in your comment if you would like an NPC to tag in, or reach out to Em or Juliet specifically. We request that each player only request one NPC per character so we may respond quickly. Thank you!

KNOWN IC DETAILS

There is gossip around town that characters can be handwaved as knowing that might drive some questions about the town and npcs:

The spooky deaths in the woods that have been going on for ages.

Mining disasters like this have happened before, always before the announcement of a big new mining vein opening up.

Children who take Ms Cygne's scholarship never come back to the town, and their letters are very formulaic.

Goluboy's wife died under mysterious circumstances, his girlfriend went to jail for the murder, and he is about town courting again.

Cygne has a pond full of so many beautiful swans, aren't they lovely!

The curfew sure is heavily enforced. Is it because the sheriff knows something about the monsters in the woods and is withholding information?

OOC DETAILS
❅ Deja Vu: Characters may optionally start getting some very brief flashes of memory or deja vu but this will be brief, confusing, and alarming rather than revelatory and full memory regain will not be possible. Still, players can opt to have this cause a feeling of possible unease or un-rightness to the situation that can be used to drive characters to have questions or be suspicious enough to investigate areas and situations.

❅ Event Length: This part of the plot will involve an npcing stage. It will last approx. two weeks before the last part, part 3, though this end time may be shortened to match player pace if npc threads progress quickly.

❅ New Intros: If your character wasn't introed in part 1 you can handwave they've been there the whole time and just intro in part 2.

❅ New Characters: If you app a new character and want to intro them at this time, assume they arrived just in time at the location the plot takes place in to be caught up in the magic drawing everyone in. They would have gotten the Man in the Moon's spiel from the welcome page right before being magically sucked in.

Threaded | Flat

You can continue to ask the plot runners questions here or plurk them directly.

Dan looks much better than the last time Miguel saw him. He’s still gaunt and his hands are still bandaged around his knuckles, but his clothing is clean and he’s well-groomed. He no longer bears the marks and smells of desperate poverty, instead just looking a little battered and smelling faintly of cigarettes. He’s been staying at the Warren Family Farms; Aster took the hit to his reputation by hiring Dan as a live-in farmhand, and Dan’s been trying to repay that by taking advantage of every opportunity Aster gives him to get healthy and rested.

He's not far from the camping set-up where he spent some nights while unsheltered, so while he was scouting the treeline for a few good entry points for Miguel, he’s been packing up then few belongings he stashed in a Ziploc bag in a tree. His meager tarp shelter takes nothing more than a few tugs to pull down, but the fog is thick enough that Dan isn’t sure there’s a safe way to go in and remove his trap line. He already feels bad enough for having left it unattended for the last few days where it could have snared an animal and let it go to waist.

“Good evening,” Dan says to Miguel as he approaches, killing his cigarette and tucking the butt into a bag in his jacket. He decided to do this at night because of the weird incidents with the monster and Lady last week. Dan isn’t sure they’ll see those apparitions again, and he hasn’t yet told Miguel about them, but he desperately wants a closer look.

“How’s my favorite employee?”

Goluboy leans on Brigid’s desk, smiling without involving his eyes. Lately, he’s been stopping by the administrative offices more and more to do “oversight”, which most of the employees understand to mean looking for people to fire for taking too-long breaks or leaving food in the break room fridge. He frequently stops by Brigid’s desk to discuss payroll matters, typically whose health insurance is going to be cut off or whose vacation requests are getting denied.

Today’s no different. Goluboy sits on the edge of her desk and all but whispers into her ear that Callahan, the miner who was just fired, should be removed from all systems and have his security clearance revoked immediately.

“You can do that for me, can’t you, sweetheart?”

“So good of you to make the time to come see an old woman,” Ms. Cygne says as she pours Lady a cup of iced tea, clearly angling for a you’re hardly old compliment. “I’ve been so curious how you’ve been. A poor girl like you, all alone in that big house, well, I’d be beside myself if I were your parents.”

Ms. Cygne has been asking Lady to come over on a monthly basis for the last few months, and recently has increased her requests for frequent contact to weekly tea times. It’s always only Ms. Cygne home, but the dessert she sets out – which she expects Lady to only take a sliver from – was clearly made by her cook. Ms. Cygne’s perfectly-manicured nails and “sensitive” nature would make slaving over a hot stove far too vulgar. This time she sets out a pear tart that would look perfect in a storefront window but which will likely be tossed into the trash the second Lady leaves.

“How have your studies been?”

Goluboy's only ever seen at establishments like Dick's when he's looking to start problems. Normally, he'd never be caught dead rubbing shoulders with the riff raff that sometimes comes to Dick's to get out of the cold and wet, but the siren song of getting to antagonize people is enough to override Goluboy's distaste for the commoners.

It doesn't override his snobbiness enough to convince him to order anything, though. He sneers at the pastries and considers the type of coffee Dick's serving to be deeply inferior to finely-ground Kona Coffee roasts. He keeps his hands in his pockets as if he doesn't want to sully himself by touching anything.

He asks the barista to speak to the manager and waits.

[ prompts will be posted below! ]

The rumors about the woods have only just started to spread. That there's something more sinister than bears in there. That the curfew stands so firmly enforced because night lets something into town that the woods keep concealed. That they're lurking in the mist. Or maybe that the mist is leaking through tears in reality that the beings from galaxies far, far away are using to get through, and that if you spend too much time in the misty, barren woods about town, you might find yourself in the hands of something that wants to experiment on you. Or eat you. Or torture you out of hate alone.

But rumors of and aliens and cryptids are just that. Rumors. You'd have to be some kind of kook to take any of that schlock seriously.

At least, that's the Sheriff's line, every time she locks someone up anyway for breaking curfew.

Maybe you ought to go see for yourself.

🟍 the protest 🟍

[Skye doesn't want to be here. The anger of the townsfolk is all too understandable; no matter how much she might look down at them, she knows they're not entirely stupid, and Goluboy hasn't been running things how they ought to be run. But work is work, she has important things to do, and it's simply unfortunate that those things require her to be on-site.

She does her best to avoid the protesters, tucked away in one of the trailers nearby, but eventually she needs to collect some readings from equipment closer to the gathered crowd.

Someone on the fringes spots her, nudging the people beside him to point out the obvious target that she makes, dressed in her stupid fucking MineCorp polo. When Skye spots them approaching, she tells herself that she's not scared of them, but it's a lie, and her hands shake a little as they start to question her, fingers tapping out an anxious rhythm.

There's only three of them to the one of her, but the ringleader has a couple of inches on her and is using it to get in her face, jabbing a finger at her chest, accusing her of helping Goluboy cover up his friend's death.]

I'm a geophysicist! I have nothing to do with the structures of the tunnels!

[This is, evidently, not a good enough answer, since he continues to yell at her.

It probably won't devolve into violence, but Skye could use some de-escalation help.]

🟍 the ball 🟍

[The week has been long and incredibly stressful, and Skye is more than ready for a chance to put all that aside from a little while. It won't be an opportunity to completely switch off, the way she could back home, but there's food and drinks and music, and that's better than nothing. Her dress isn't her usual style, chosen to allow her to fade into the background; formal enough to blend in, without being ostentatious.

There's something freeing about that, too, being able to just blend into the background. She mingles a little, but spends much of her time outdoors on the lawn, at one point captivated by the scent of rosemary for a reason she can't quite explain.

When she hears someone approaching, she hastily wipes away a few stray tears, chastising herself silently for the display of weakness.]

🟍 the mines; closed to plot runners 🟍

[Something is wrong in the mines.

Ever since she arrived, Skye has felt there's something off about the mines, at first attributing it to Goluboy's greed and stupidity, until it became clear there's more going on.

She needs to know what it is. Once she figures it out, she can call Stella, wrap up her life in this shithole and go home, something she's wanted to do since setting foot in this awful town.

Her plan has required some careful planning, making sure she has the supplies, and more importantly, making sure that the mines will be quiet enough for her to sneak in unnoticed. The brief shut down after the cave-in provides the perfect opportunity; she's already stolen a keycard to allow her access and set up a timed email that will go out to Stella, should she not return within 24 hours.

It's not quite dusk when she makes her move, having waited on-site with the claim of needing to finish up a report until the majority of the staff had left. Sneaking past the few remaining guards or miners isn't too hard, even with her pack, and the elevator down the main shaft is quiet enough that she doesn't expect anyone to hear her.

And then it's just her, a headlamp, and the tunnels stretching out before her.]

🟍 wildcard 🟍

[[ooc: feel free to hit me up for regular in town stuff or anything else ✌️ i'm happy to write a starter.]]

Town Hall

[Lowell is Town Manager. Normally that would make him too important to play secretary and receptionist, but in this town... He's often obliged to be in Town Hall, and they only have one dedicated receptionist, so whenever she's not in (which is often), he has to greet any visitors, a bland barely pleasant demeanor covering his disdain for the whole ordeal. Under normal circumstances it's a rare occurrence, but in the wake of the mine accident, many townspeople have decided that if MineCorp won't listen to them, they'll take it to the town. He hasn't had a single hour without someone coming in demanding to speak to someone, and while he directs them to writing a formal(-ish) complaint to the town council, he's increasingly annoyed and thus shorter with the visitors. Eagle-eyed visitors might note a loose disorganized pile of handwritten papers in his office, and if they stick around after writing down their complaint, they'll probably see him throwing it onto the pile.]

The Ball

[Lowell is invited, as a member of an old family of importance and an important elected official. As someone in disgrace and his office obviously bought and openly ceremonial, he's expected to be as invisible as possible, lest he draw the hostess's ire. For the most part, he's abiding by that, barely engaging in small talk in the ballroom and taking the most non-descript seat at the table during the dinner, eating and drinking almost nothing. He's impeccably dressed in a black suit, and that's about all that stands out about him.

[When the woman starts crying and gets hustled away by her friend, he discreetly leaves his seat a short time later to follow them. Ostensibly he's just using the bathroom as well, but he's hoping to talk to her and maybe learn something negative about the grand and perfect Ms. Cygne.]

Crazy Wade's Used Shitheaps isn't the most professional of used car dealerships. The name alone was a very big clue. The only things keeping it in business was that the cars were cheap and Wade supplemented that with all the cocaine he dealt.

Wade was living up to that lack of professionalism by sunbathing shirtless on a beach chair in the parking lot. His pet dog, a creature so ugly she just barely missed looping around back to cute again, slept under the shade of the chair with a water dish.

Edited 2024-09-24 03:32 (UTC)

~ The Ball I ~

Lady has met the assignment: she’s dressed in an all-white ballgown and elbow-length white gloves. Her hair is in a simple bun and she has a feathered diadem wrapped around her head.

Though for the past two years she’s been fairly socially isolated, tonight you would have no idea. She is greeting everyone like they’re old friends— whether they’re school acquaintances or people she passes when walking down the street. She’s making jokes and floating about the room. The soft smile never drops from her face.

Ms. Cygne is never too far. Out of earshot, yes, but never quite out of eye-line. It’s difficult to tell if Lady is sticking close to her or vice versa.

~ The Dying Swan ~

Ms. Cygne has already announced that there will be a performance and ushered all of the guests to clear the floor. Lady went to change into her costume about thirty minutes ago. The nerves are starting to get to her— all those people are going to be watching. Judging.

She reminds herself that she’s practiced her ass off, day and night, to get this right. She knows this dance inside and out. Ms. Cygne believes in her. She believes in herself.

The music starts.

The piece isn’t the most technically challenging, though being en pointe for nearly four minutes takes quite a toll, but the hardest part is the emotion. A beautiful creature trying so hard to fly away, only to succumb to the inevitable. It’s full of hope and grief, loss and love.

Lady doesn’t think, she just moves and feels.

…….

The music stops and it’s like falling out of a trance. Her breathing is heavy, but controlled, as she stays on the ground for a few more beats. Long enough to close her eyes and, unable to hear nothing but the rushing of blood in her ears, and pretend she’s alone.

But the world quickly comes back into focus around her, so she stands, curtsies, and waits for Ms. Cygne to dismiss her so that she can go into the powder room and change again.

~ The Ball II ~

After her performance, Lady has changed into a a new dress. It’s a tight, black beaded dress with a feathered mermaid skirt that sits right on the edge of decency for the formal occasion. She is looking to make an impression, not just on Ms. Cygne but on every person in attendance.

At some point she does get overstimulated, or maybe just overwhelmed, and she has to step outside. The walks around a corner so she’s not indirect sight of the door and allows herself to collapse against the exterior of Ms. Cygne’s home. The mask she's been keeping up all night falls away. She takes deep breaths and tries to still the trembling of her hands.

Lady is so focused on her breathing that she doesn't hear anyone approaching until it’s too late to recompose herself.

Edited 2024-09-24 05:01 (UTC)

b. we ball

[ Well, Aziraphale would be remiss not to attend the event of the year, wouldn't he. Although he suspects his attendance is less about boosting the respectability of the community and more about the fact that he's able to meet a formal dress code and won't cause some sort of scene.

Goes a long way in a community like this. He ought to know.

So he's present and accounted for! Not quite the belle of the ball or the most social man on the scene, but he certainly seems to be making an effort not to be a total recluse about it. Honestly, the moments where he's stopping to say hello to or check in on a familiar face are the moments where Aziraphale looks... well, if not strictly comfortable, then at least less uncomfortable than the rest of the time. ]

The, the theming is as lovely as ever, isn't it?

[ Help him, library patron, volunteer, or prior acquaintance Kenobi. You are his only hope.

Who couldn't use a distraction from their own strange and inexplicable brain hiccups anyway? That's at least half of why Aziraphale is bothering at all: to be highkey avoidant. ]

c. wildcard.

[ For any other thread needs! Especially people looking to hang at the library, where Mister Fell is happy to serve. That or grateful to have the usual roster of loyal volunteers. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, yes? He'll be about as relaxed as he really ever is in a public space.

Also up for plotting, planning, doing closed starters, basically anything! Feel free to hmu in a DM or at

comatoseroses! ]

Threaded | Flat

PLOT RUNNER QUESTIONS

For Miguel | Closed

For Brigid

For Lady

For Dick

Paul Delius (Apollo)