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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A sentiment Yennefer can certainly agree on - trust is earned, and wiser to be kept in low commodity.

She doesn't think twice about hiding her display of magic though, subtle as it is - it's second nature, even despite the waves of discomfort it sends ringing loud through her hands. Fire, predictably, was potent in its chaos.

At Ellie's approach, Yen angles herself a bit away from the flame, confident enough in its strength to drop her hands away, and pull her knees closer to her chest, sat in front of the fireplace, thread of her skirts splayed around her in foreign contrast to Ellie's clothing. "I am," she confirms, brows closely knit, violet gaze leveled to the girl. "I just woke up here. Without a damned memory of how." The moments she remembered before here were very different.

"Where is this?" Now that she can ask her questions, she will.

Ellie's gaze travels over Yennefer's clothes. They seem impossibly fancy, like something out of a movie from back when people had something like that. Who the hell is this woman? No one else had looked so fancy.

She moves closer to the fire to soak in some of its warmth. She's wearing her regular clothes: jeans, t-shirt, her coat, her beat up canvas shoes. She has warmer clothes back at the house, but at least she didn't end up here too underdressed.

"Yeah, that's...pretty much what happened to all of us here. You just wake up and don't know how you got here. Sucks, huh?

As for where it is, well...

"This is Mathias. I don't know where it is in relation to anything else. There's gotta be something out there, but...no one's been able to get out. The fog around the town will fuck you up. Not that anyone can even get that far in this stupid blizzard."

Yen will likely find herself firmly disappointed in the choices of fashions here, odd as they look to her. Similar enough - a shirt is a shirt, and trousers are trousers - but distorted from familiarity. Much as everything else around them, but it's the people you notice first.

She wonders what it's like outside, beyond the flurry of white, and the snow and wind tapping on the windows reminds her again that they are very much trapped. And she knows, try all she might, she is in no form to try and cast any portals now. Where would she try and go?

Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps some rest, to ease the sting of injuries she can't heal quite yet.

There's no spark of recognition, only deepening confusion. A flicker of anger, too, rolling under her skin. "The town and fog," she repeats quietly. "Not those within it." It sounded like something the greedy reach of Nilfgaard's mages would try and achieve. But - this didn't feel like them. She would be either dead, or otherwise captured, if it was. Yen's hands are raised in front of her to catch more of the spreading heat. There's still dirt and blood under her nails. "Storms pass," is hissed lowly.

Importantly: "Are there monsters? Enemies who will otherwise harm any of us here?"

Ellie hears that angry note in Yennefer's words, but she can't blame her. This place is infuriating, and confusing, and if Yen had just woken up here in the house that seems...actually somehow worse. When Ellie and the others had woken up on the beach, they'd been able to get...well, not far. But they weren't snowed in like this, either.

Her gaze drifts to the fire and slides sideways to Yennefer's hands. They're not exactly clean; that might be blood, but it's hard to tell in the dark. Again, she wonders who this woman is with her fancy clothes and possibly blood on her hands. She seems as unreal as the town, almost.

"Monsters? I...uh, not that I've ever see. You got monsters where you're from?"

Technically Ellie does too, but she doesn't really think of the Infected as monsters. They were people first. Monsters sound more like John's thing, some creature of evil or what-the-fuck-ever.

"There must be enemies fucking somewhere. Someone brought us here. But we don't know anything about them or who they are, where they are, how they did it. Everyone I've actually met here is pretty cool, though. Guess if we're all stuck in this together, why go at each other about it?"

Though she realises that's probably luck. People can be extra shitty to each other when things go wrong. It's probably only a matter of time before someone here turns out to be a world class douche.

It is a miracle this house was still standing, untouched by Yen's storm-like temperament if only by virtue of her exhaustion.

"Plenty, enough to fill a few books," is the conversational reply, as though she was talking about an academic fact. To a point, she was. "Most are satisfied enough to live and let live. Some, less so."

She turns her attention back to Ellie with a tilt of her head as she listens and idly decides that she likes the honesty in her words. Perhaps it's the cutting simplicity of those statements.

Yen's lips even get a bemused twist at everyone is pretty cool, because what a bizarre way of putting it. Jargon will take some time to get used to. "There's limits to anyone's civility," ever the fatalist, Yennefer. "But that makes things a touch bit easier, I'll admit. So long as no one loses sight of finding the real enemy."

And they are, aren't they? Whoever took them will pay, if only by virtue of getting in Yennefer's way. Perhaps a self-important way of thinking about it, but it was obvious enough that none of this happened with good intention in mind. "What's your name?" She asks, after a moment.

Ellie just sort of stares. She's heard some weird shit since coming here, but this gorgeous woman in her amazing dress talking about monsters like that's just totally fucking normal? Out of this world. She probably wouldn't have believed Yennefer if this had happened three weeks ago. As it is, she just...decides she does believe it. Three weeks in Mathias is a long time, after all.

"Yeah, no shit," she says. "People are fucking terrible. But so far everyone here is pretty cool. I like that about them." She hasn't met everyone, but whatever. Ellie herself has a limit to civility too, after all.

"I'm Ellie. What's yours?"

Would things be simpler in worlds without magic? Yennefer never considered that, because that was never her reality. If she were to consider it now, it would be an unsettling thought. Magic made her who she is, for better or worse. And being here is proof enough of its wild unpredictability.

Ellie startles a small laugh out of her. "They are. But I will take your word for it, here." In as much as someone like her can. But you don't need to be a mind reader to see Ellie's honesty.

"Yennefer," a slow smile lingers, pulls just the one corner of her mouth, before throwing another cautionary glance around the room.

"The most infuriating thing," she hums, after a moment, and a particularly harsh gust of wind outside. "Has got to be the waiting. How long has the storm gone on?" She tries not to think about how, were she in her full power, she may have been able to do something about it now, if only to prove that she could.

"Yennefer," she repeats. She's definitely never heard a name like that. It's different and pretty, like the woman herself. Not that Ellie would say anything like that out loud in a million years.

"The storm? I don't know. I think we all woke up here even if we were somewhere else. I guess a day or so, but it's been so bad today we can't even go anywhere. The waiting really does suck, though. Trust me, I don't like waking up without knowing how I got here anymore than you do. Gets fucking tired."

Well, the sentiment, however quiet, would be vainly appreciated.

"Mm," she hums, and pulls her knees closer to her. Her side stings and whines, and she is very much aware that she is biding her time for it to inevitably gets worse. But, she keeps her arms tightly folded across her side, and chooses to ignore it in lieu of warmth. "It takes a lot of power for something to drag us from such far reaches," since, you know, its pretty obvious they are from vastly different places. And she doesn't like that thought, she doesn't like the possibilities of what that may imply, but it doesn't change this reality, either.

"I really don't know anything about magic and shit like that," Ellie says. She feels so out of her depth around people who do. Until three weeks ago, she'd have just laughed if someone tried to tell her magic could really exist. Now, she guesses this place is magic. She's seen a kid literally teleport. People have come back from the dead. But she doesn't trust magic or see much actual use in it. She'd much rather have a gun.

"But whatever's going on here must be some crazy fucking magic. Sometimes people come back from the dead, too. And I didn't even really believe in the multiverse or other world until I got here."

She looks to the window, where the snow still falls.

"At least we seem to have enough food, no matter what else the town does to us. Weird, huh?"

"Mm, you're probably better off," magic complicated plenty, as much as Yennefer has admittedly been able to use it to her advantage through the years.

But the world has given her only that which she has taken herself, and only that which she was owed. She wonders if she never had her conduit moment, if Tissaia never found her, how her life would have turned out. If she never knew what real power felt like.

Not better than now, but there was a simplicity in never having known magic at all.

What the girl says is more and more disconcerting, and Yen's eyes are back on her. "You've seen people be resurrected?"

"And that would be a word for it."

"Honestly, yeah, I got enough bullshit without magic being part of it," Ellie says. This whole town is magic or something and she could absolutely do without. It seems cool on paper and in books, but...magic can't bring back what she's lost. It just seems to make things a lot more complicated.

"I mean...I know people who've died and come back. I didn't like see it. I don't think anyone's outright seen it, but like half a dozen people had it happen a few days after we all got here. But some people don't come back. I have no fucking clue what decides it."

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024-027 » neither reward nor punishment

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