villagelogs | 024-027 » neither reward nor punishment

024-027 » neither reward nor punishment

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias + ???
WHEN: Days 024-027
WHAT: The consequences of their actions.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! The next log will be posted January 23rd.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Onryo" 怨霊

DAYS 024-025
CONSEQUENCES
“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments —
there are consequences.”
— Robert G. Ingersoll
When the unwilling residents of Mathias Township wake on the morning of the 24th day, they will find themselves in yet another set of frustratingly unnerving circumstances. None of them are where they last remember being, and some of them have strange marks on the palms of their left hands. It's all incredibly unsettling, but truthfully they should be used to it by now. No one will remember traveling to their new location.

Residents can wake up anywhere within their new location and in any position. Curled up in a bed, sprawled on a couch, huddled beneath a coffee table, propped against a wall... Wherever they are, they will themselves to be in quite an unusual state. While they are wearing whatever clothing items they went to sleep in, plus their shoes and a coat. The newest arrivals to Mathias Township will perhaps stand out for being slightly more appropriately dressed than their new neighbors. They are all a bit damp, physically worn out, and half-frozen from their apparent walk through a blizzard.

Each of the four locations is inescapable — residents are trapped, with exterior doors and windows being shut tight and a blizzard raging outside. The locations are stocked with fresh food and water and a large pile of firewood for the fireplaces in each building. The circumstances residents will face, however, may vary wildly between locations as the forces at work in Mathias respond to the recent actions of certain individuals.

BOARDING HOUSE | GREY GULL
NEW HOUSE | MYSTERY MANSION

These residents will wake with a mark on their left hand palms, a spiraling black symbol similar to those some may have seen around town. All marks are identical and cannot be removed, but will have seemingly vanished from their skin on the morning of the 26th day.

Castiel, Daisy Johnson, Dean Winchester
Elena Gilbert, Elijah Mikaelson, Helen Magnus
Phil Coulson, Quentin Coldwater, Sherlock Holmes

DAYS 026-027
IN THE AFTERMATH
After their ordeals of the past two days, the unfortunate residents of Mathias Township will be grateful to find that they were back where they are supposed to be, a chill still clinging to their clothes in whatever place they went to sleep the night of the 23rd day. New arrivals will wake in the living room of the boarding house. None of the residents will wake with anything in their possession from the locations in which they were previously trapped, including any notes or documentation they may have made during their time there.

CONDITIONS UPDATE
— SNOW continues to fall heavily on Days 024-025, resulting in white out conditions from the wind that blows in gusts of over 35 mph; the temperature also drops drastically, making conditions extremely dangerous for residents. The blizzard clears on Day 26 and residents are left with a cold, calm world covered in white.

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be. Venturing into the fog is... ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. Kylo Ren and Thomas Richardson have vanished without a trace.

— NO NEW DEATHS have occurred in town, but there is a new "grave" in the small makeshift graveyard near the schoolhouse. Rey's corpse has been moved and covered with stones to wait for the ground to thaw enough for a proper burial.

— THE LANTERNS will be gone from the morning of Day 024. No trace of them remains.

OOC UPDATES
— A GIFT for everyone! As a thank you for being part of this spooky little game, every character in the game is being gifted 2 Activity Points. These may be banked over here — instead of linking to an AC post, you may put "New Year gift" in that field. Happy 2021, friends!

— NEW LAYOUTS have been installed for our communities! Huge thanks to our Eldritch Librarian Stars for putting in the time to get this place looking shiny. (You may have also noticed some new page layouts being installed — these are also our Librarian's handiwork!)

— DISCOVERIES have been collected and collated for your review. Please note that this is OOC information only, put together for the purpose of helping you as players see connections and possibilities for CR and your own character's potential avenues of exploration and investigation. (If we are missing something, please report it so we can add it to the list.)

— REMINDERS — Don't forget about the bulletin board. Please continue reporting your updates to locations, plots, and discoveries. The map of Mathias has been added to the locations page for ease of reference. Make sure your character's sanity level is kept updated. Prospective players are still joining the TDM, so it's recommended to track new top-levels so you don't miss them.

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a. Early 025: Cooking up a storm in the storm -

[Apparently things aren't getting better, and even though he was never much of a great sleeper anymore, it feels like it's been years since he caught some z's. In any case, the best thing to do would be to get his mind off it and the unsettling...everything of this place.

The scent of chili wafts through the air as he stirs the pot a little agressively, chopping tomatoes and onions just as agressively. Cooking has always lifted his mood, always helped him to just think or conversely, not think, and express himself.

It's just this doesn't make any sense. If someone had captured him, they hadn't revealed themselves to him yet. Someone would have done this for a reason, one of their enemies, some CEO that they put away or someone that had it out for them. Someone who thought it was funny to put speakers in the walls and make it sound like there's voices. It couldn't possibly be Moreau and yet...

He's lost in thought as he continues with the chili, his eyes clearly not focused on what he was doing in front of him, his mind in another place...]

b. Late 025: Enough is more than enough -

[It just doesn't stop. The noise, that unsettling feeling, that sensation of wrongness, the voices, the rumbling, and the overwhelming idea that maybe, just maybe, this is all on purpose.

This can't be real, what's happening here. He's dreaming, he's gotta be, this kind of stuff didn't just happen. Every time he hears a voice he swats at the air, practically punching at it, his eyes wide and a faint thread of sweat on his brow.

This stuff shouldn't get to him like this. He's been through worse, but it feels like he's been awake for years and every shriek, every rumble just tears a little more away at his patience.

He can be found trying to see if the windows or doors open--it's just that he doesn't have an exit here, you always need an exit, this place is getting worse and he really needs to have an out. He sits down near a corner and it looks an awful lot like he's trying to start a fire in what he thinks is a weak portion of the wood...]

[ elena's carded her hands through her hair so many times this day and the previous that it's beginning to tangle and mat. her right hand has a bandage wrapped around it to match the bandage on the right side of her neck. she hasn't been coping extremely well with the day's events, beginning to become a victim of cabin fever.

she'd noticed him punching the air a few times and had steered clear, imagining that he needed to get his aggression out against an invisible enemy (and she'd tried to fall asleep on a table when he'd swatted the air a little too loudly—or maybe the air had simply whooshed by her louder than it had any right to). every other time she thought to approach him, her feet had felt sluggish and her attention splintered.

it's when he's sitting suspiciously in a corner that she can't help herself. she doesn't know him, and she's itching to do something that isn't staring at the wall and hear her own blood sing slowly and sluggishly in her veins.

standing over him, she keeps her hands by her sides, shoulders slouched. she's pale-skinned with some darkness beneath her eyes, but her brown eyes are still alert and inquisitive.

she stares down at him and her voice comes out a bit harshly. ] Are you trying to start a fire?

[Eliot doesn't startle, exactly--he's aware of someone approaching him and watching. He hasn't spoken to her directly yet, but in this building it was only a matter of time. Especially now, when his patience has worn thin.]

Yeah.

[His tone is just as clipped, and he glances up, his blue eyes wide with...something. Annoyance, mostly. There's a pause when he takes in her appearance, trying to decide if she just looked as tired as he felt or if there was something else going on here.]

S'that a problem?

If you catch a light, we're all going to burn inside.

[ which… she doubts was his goal. was it his goal? elena should and does understand self-destructive tendencies. she's the girl who likes to dance with death.

but right now, the idea of burning alive… does not sound great. she's convinced he has a flint or the very skill to start a fire. ]

There's a protective charm on this place that will keep us inside.

[ she thinks. like she knows. ]

It'll be fine, trust me.

[He sounds mildly irritated at this and huffs, going back to trying to get it to light.

Except.

Except.]

Right. A protective charm.

[ she smiles, a little amused. ] You don't believe me?

[ out of everything that's happened in this town, of all the things that can occur within someone's first few hours… a protective charm surely can't be the strangest thing?

but everyone does have their own breaking points of believability. elena's is believing this isn't some purgatory. ]

Of course I don't believe you! There's no such thing as magic!

[He sounds almost angry about it--

--or maybe he's angry at himself for starting to believe in the possibility that it was true.

Or angry at reality for allowing it to be true.]

[ his anger is both expected and unexpected. elena jumps a little, but mostly its from the fact that the volume in the grey gull has been very… not voluminous.

crossing her arms against her chest, she narrows her eyes thoughtfully as she eyes him. she sets her feet stubbornly. ]

How do you think we got here?

Someone kidnapped us, obviously!

[Which was...not what she was implying here, also obviously. He frowns, getting even more worked up.]

What, you think someone said abracadabra and poof, dropped us all here!? There's clearly something big behind this, sure--a company, some really powerful guy, that's how it always goes. We're bein' held for ransom or they're doin' some kind of social experiment, or we're bein' filmed for a TV show, like there's probably hidden cameras all over this place!

[ he's not wrong about it potentially being a social experiment. honestly, that's probably the closest guess to what's going on here that anyone's made so far.

she shouldn't look amused, but it's far better than being aggravated. even if she wanted to be irritated, she couldn't be. the lack of sleep makes her want to laugh. ]

Then why can't we open a window and get out of here? Do you think they're bolt shut from the outside?

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[ It absolutely doesn't make any sense. Sherlock has never enjoyed anyone getting one up on him, and the fact that he's now been seemingly drugged and relocated twice without any indication as to how is just one of the many things currently spinning his mind of out control.

The first day had been relatively fine. The conditions hadn't bothered him much, he's a Mind Over Matter type of man, but everything then was still relatively new. He could explore the rooms and all the nooks and crannies and corners. He'd done it over and over, wondering what he might have missed. Now? Of course he's done it all over again, feeling (despite himself) more and more manic with each turn of the hour.

It takes a while before the smell radiating from the kitchen finally manages to grab his attention. It had always been there, present but not important, and now that Sherlock's exhausted his search (for now), he lets himself go and see who's feeling fine enough to cook. ]

You're about to boil over.

Oh, man--

[Eliot moves quickly to rescue the chili, grabbing a spoon and turning down the heat, stirring it.]

Thanks. Usually that doesn't...happen.

[There's a sheepish smile. His accent places him somewhere vaguely from the southern American Midwest, Oklahoma in particular. He adds a bit of chopped something or the other to the chili, pausing to give it a taste.]

Since you saved it, you want a bowl?

[Not that he was gonna keep it all to himself. He was happy to give it all away, really.]

[ Sherlock clocks the accent almost immediately. While the man talks, Sherlock takes a few mental notes about him, but the question gives him pause.

Does he want a bowl?

He realizes in that moment that he's in want of food, too distracted up to this point to have been concerned about it. But he's also vaguely aware of the fact that he's never actually had chili, and he's not really sure he wants to. ]

I don't see why not.

[ Desperate times, desperate measures. ]

All right.

[This seems to have cheered him up a bit despite the toll this place is taking on him, and the stress of being just...here when he shouldn't be, in an entirely new world or whatever the hell was going on here.]

Wish I had somethin' to make it spicier. If I was back home it'd have more of a kick.

[He scoops out a decent amount in a bowl, finds a spoon, and slides it over to the other man.]

Thank you. Where is home for you, exactly?

[ It's more or less just casual conversation, something to fill the time while they're stuck here. But of course Sherlock wants to know as much as he can about everyone, so the small talk serves its purpose. ]

Portland, Oregon.

[He actually seems happy to talk about it, at least. There's a fondness in his voice that wasn't there a moment ago.]

I help run a brewpub. If you're ever in town, you should stop by and check it out. Just don't...try the house microbrews. Honestly, they're not quite there yet. Still got a few...a lot of things to work out with that.

[And maybe send Hardison and Parker to work at an actual brewery for a year or two to get that horrible concoction into something actually drinkable.]

Edited 2021-01-31 06:16 (UTC)

I can't really imagine a time that I'll ever be in Portland.

[ At least he's honest, right? He's sure it's a fine enough place, but Sherlock's heart really is in London despite it all.

Running a brewpub, though, is a very unassuming job. Not exactly mundane, per se, but not something that Sherlock thinks would get a person landed here. Unless the grand experiment is about taking all sorts, as much a social experiment as a psychological one. ]

American beers don't have a very good reputation where I'm from.

[ Daisy is used to not getting a lot of sleep, but even this is pushing her limits. The massive amount of pain she's in isn't helping either and there's just not a whole lot that can be done about that. She's commandeered a bottle of tylenol from the first aid kit and is doing her best to ration it despite the temptation to down the whole thing in one go, but she's due her next dose, so into the kitchen she goes in search of a glass of water. She doesn't expect to be greeted by the sight of one of her fellow trapped souls almost violently chopping ingredients for what is smelling a lot like chili. ]

Hey, you need any help? [ Speaking from just inside the doorway so she hopefully doesn't startle him too much — he is holding a knife, after all, and she doesn't want him hurting himself with it. ]

[There's a pause in his violent chopping when he acknowledges the visitor to his aggressive culinary sanctuary.

Then there's a shrug, and he shoves the cutting board, the knife, and an onion over to her.]

Knock yourself out.

[It's gruff, with a twang in his words that place him from the American southern midwest--Oklahoma in particular. He doesn't seem to acknowledge her much more than that, or at least, on the surface. On the inside, he's observing every action to get information about her.]

[ Well, she's had worse receptions. Back in the early days on the Bus, Fitzsimmons had been pretty testy whenever she'd wandered into the lab and started touching things. At least this time she asked first. ]

Thanks. [ She is grateful — it'll be nice to have something to do for a few minutes to try and keep her mind off— That piercing shriek sounds again, burrowing through her bones and making her flinch, but she keeps moving toward the offered task. One look at her own hands presents a problem, though, so she starts unwrapping the strips of grey fabric from around her palms and retying them at her wrists, revealing the mottled bruising on her skin. But look, she might not know much about being in a kitchen, but she does know that you wash your hands before dealing with food, so that's what she's going to do before getting to work.

How do you chop an onion without crying, again? ]

[He goes back to stirring the chili slowly, concentrating on the quality of the meat when the shriek hits again and he pauses, closing his eyes for a second and trying to center himself and not fling the ladle into the nearest window.

This is just getting to be a lot.

But when he opened his eyes again he does notice the bruises and the stirring stops, and his attention becomes like a laser focus on her.]

Looks like you were in a hell of a fight.

[ She manages half a laugh at that, though both it and her tone are on the bitter side. It's not directed at him, at least, just the general overall situation they've found themselves in. ]

I wish. There's nothing here to fight. [ Drying her hands on a small towel, she turns to face him properly, figuring she might as well give him an actual explanation. ] This place is messing with my powers and this is what happens when I use them.

[ That's the explanation she's sharing with everyone, anyway. She doesn't need a big group of strangers knowing the much more personal reason it might be happening. Personal and more than a little terrifying... ]

I can honestly say I'm disappointed at that. I really would like to fight somethin' right now.

[Can he just punch the walls of this building or maybe the floor to express his displeasure?

Except she says powers and he pauses stirring.

There's a scoff that almost sounds like a laugh, but he trails off because she's serious, isn't she?]

You're...kiddin' me.

[ Daisy's been wanting to punch something for weeks now, but at this point she's pretty sure that it would punch back a lot harder than she could handle. Wouldn't stop her from trying, of course, should the opportunity present itself...

Oh, right. He's one of those. Turning back to the sink, she switches on the water and holds her hands on either side of the stream, a gentle push all it takes to make the water twist and spiral. Glancing over her shoulder, she shrugs at him. ]

Powers.

[That...

...that is really a thing that's happening right now. Eliot completely forgets about the chili for a moment, the ladle dropping and clanging against the side of the pot.]

Powers.

[He repeats, so utterly astonished that he can't do anything but stare for a moment.

And then, a look of equally astonished delight--]

You're really doin' that. You really have powers!

[He's not Hardison, he's not a geek but he can only imagine how hype Hardison would be right now and it feels like he should be as well, at least on his behalf at the moment.]

Day 025 - OTA

b. please don't start a fire, eliot, this is not survivor

what if it is tho

https://bit.ly/3nEKsRi you're right; any minute, jeff probst is going to appear

it explains everything he knew it

sorry for taking so long! i was on exile beach 8(

No worries at all!

💖

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a. sorry for showing up late with no sbux

No worries Eliot can make some good sbux equivalent coffees

oh damn he might be her new best friend

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