024-027 » neither reward nor punishment

[villagemod]

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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Comments

[tinstar]

Un-huh. [The squint didn't physically intensify, but the weight behind it did. The kidgloves of gentle LEO were subtly getting tucked away - kidgloves were for innocent people, people who couldn't deal with the harsher realities of life so lightly. No, you murder a man, justified or not, it does something to you.

You murder enough, you might not even care about what it's doing to you.

Raylan huffed an almost bitter breath at the implications behind 'moral outrage' - Is that what that had been? He disagreed but his face didn't change an iota until he shifted to chew on his inner lip for a second.

One hand lifted, index finger pointing out at Will.]

The US Marshals Service is a Federal department, but are you hopin' I'll what, give you a gold star for all that? So you seen a Marshal's badge and you've got some intuition, if not outright education for psychology.

Helps me out actually-[he continued, pointing hand turning out palm up for a second before he returned it to his hip with a flare of his jacket as he moved it out of the way for access, legs miles longs ambling forward another few slow steps. His tone had shifted again, back into 'how's yer mama and them' friendly, unflapped affability.

He knew the change was meant to unsettle him, to spook him. But it bothered him less than the man might have hoped.] -I can suspend the niceties, since you seem to have.

You come out of an asylum or miss your bus into one? Lemme ask you somethin'; just - professional curiosity - you ever think huntin' down monsters turns you into one yourself? [Cause sorry kid, you sound like one.]

[this_ismydesign]

[ Will smiled. It put dimples in his cheek but somehow it appeared even more unsettling than if he had tried to look threatening. Though Raylan had both height and substance on him, Will didn't flinch away from his approach.

He did not appear put out when Raylan called him on some of the bullshit he'd spouted. The man wasn't wrong and Will was more than willing to acknowledge when he was being a little shit. Straight shooter, reminded him of Beverly Katz. ]

What do you think made me so good at the job? [ Will said, looking suddenly as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. ] That's what I had the knack for, getting into the minds of the monsters. Get all snuggled up in their thoughts, look through their eyes, feel their needs.

Always lead to that tiny piece of evidence everybody else missed. A hundred percent conviction rate comes with a price. I merely got to the point where I stopped trying to evade the tax collector.

[tinstar]

[The smile did more work than the reading of the Marshal did but his approach was only to see if Will would scurry away again. Whatever misgiving caused that, it seemed to have subsided for now.]

Mmhmm. [So.. much more similar to Malcolm. Interesting.]

So you were in law enforcement and decided to go rogue, is that it?

[An important question, considering that Raylan was a LEO too. Was Will still part of an agency or had he decided to take the law into his own hands?]

[this_ismydesign]

I was retired. [ Will answered, his voice back to what Raylan might come to learn was his normal tones. Soft, deep and measured. ]

But the FBI had a family annihilator on the loose and no leads. I was dragged back into the abyss. [ He looked at a point beyond Raylan's shoulder, then sighed and his body seemed to slump, like a puppet with its strings cut. ] By the end of it I was done with the never ending game of cat and mouse.

[tinstar]

['Was retired'. Not 'I retired'. Difference noted.

It felt more and more like this man was what Malcolm would become if the things haunting him took over his head, what little Raylan knew of it.]

Any chance the blood on you is your poor mouse?

[this_ismydesign]

My poor mouse? [ Will asked the words, giving Raylan a disbelieving look. ]

[tinstar]

[He shrugged.] That's a lotta blood. Suggests a violent death. Suggests that either you enjoyed it, or you were fightin' for your life. Either way is a brutal way to go.

[this_ismydesign]

[ For the first time, Will looked down at himself. ] It really does look black in the moonlight. [ He murmured. Then he looked back at Raylan and shrugged. ] It is not a tidy thing, taking down the Great Red Dragon.

But the answer to your question is; both.

[ Were he more anchored in any sort of reality Will might have been wiser with his words. But to his mind this man, this figure, was some amalgamation of parts of his own psyche. Always wise to be true with yourself, right> ]

[tinstar]

Oh good, both, great. [Like he'd found a bowl of nuts to his liking or something.

Yeah, sure. Everything was fine. He was standing in a room with a man who'd just killed a serial killer and enjoyed it. That wasn't to say that some part of Raylan didn't enjoy putting each man that he did down, but this was.. Markedly different.]

The Great Red Dragon is an.. interesting name. 'Fore we get to that, how's about we get to yours.

[this_ismydesign]

[ That statement/question earned Raylan a bemused look. ]

It has been a few years since I had to do this exercise with myself, but if you insist.

[ Will closed his eyes and ran through a litney that sounded as if he had learned it from a psychiatrist. ] My name is Will Graham. It was 11:53pm when I took Hannibal off the cliff, and I am falling into the ocean, dying. [ His eyes opened and he looked at Raylan with an eyebrows raised, curious look. ]

Want me to draw a clock next? I'm not sure how much time we have left before my synapses succumb to the lack of oxygen but if you have a pen and paper, I'll humor you.

[tinstar]

This is the furthest you're ever gonna get from an art class. [Raylan assured with a faint lift of his eyebrows.

But it was all an interesting tell and way to lay it out.]

And I think you're gonna find that your synapses are doin'.. I ain't gonna say fine, [Judging by Will's EVERYTHING, but-] but we'll go with still firein'.

You got any Southern Gentlemen in your head or am I just a.. an anomaly? [Just a ballpark question, you know, just for funzies.]

[this_ismydesign]

My father was a southern gentleman. Louisiana born and bred. [ Will was back to pacing, even if he was now starting to repeat the loop. ]

Mash up a little of him, you never forget your father's voice, with a dash of Jack, Beverly -a lot of Beverly-, some Zeller and a pinch of Jimmy Price? [ Will motioned to Raylan. ] Your face is probably that of someone I taught or passed in the hallways of Quantico

MY TURN - let me know if this is incorrect, what with the lack of tonal context to his speaking

[tinstar]

You don't carry the same accent. Raised somewhere else? [It was a venture either way. There were plenty of people who fixed or worked to not have their accents at all. The south didn't come with the best of images, after all.]

This is all Kentucky, by the way. Harlan, not that you'll know it.

All good!

[this_ismydesign]

We traveled a lot. [Will admitted.] Following the seasons to where the boat work could be found.

[ He shrugged then. ] Started with the New Orleans Police Department, but spent most of my career in Virginia, at Quantico. [ And Will had often taken on the tone, cadence and rhythm of other speakers. A curse of pure empathy. ]

[tinstar]

What branch were you with? FBI? Marines? [Explains the subtle assholishness self assurance he was picking up.

Oh yes - he might not understand what, exactly, was Will's deal, but he would open every door the hallucination gig would get him right now. He had a feeling this was a man to clam up and play close to the chest when he had all his wits about him.]

[this_ismydesign]

Do I look like Marine material to you? [ Will asked in a slightly dry, yet bitchy tone. Falling back into his habit of answering a question with a question. ]

[tinstar]

Not really, but if Mathis has taught me anything, it's that I oughta think outside the box. [The explanation came with an equally subtle condescension.

But it narrowed it down and only put Will more into the Asshole category, despite the man not jabbing directly and by no fault of his own. There was no love lost between the agencies of enforcement.]

Tell me about Hannibal. You said you took him off a cliff. How long have you been after him?

[this_ismydesign]

[ Oh he has been caught in so many of Uncle Jack's pissing wars with local law enforcement that Will doesn't even react to the subtle condescension. It is part of the game and if doesn't have to actively make a detective, with more confidence than brains, to back off Will usually ignores it. ]

It took me almost two years to catch him the first time. Dumped him in a glass cage with stone walls and forgot him for three years. Then the FBI decided to use the devil they knew to catch the devil in the wild and they dragged me back into the abyss.

They made a mess of it. Destroyed my family. So I broke Hannibal out, used him as bait for the Dragon and killed all three monsters in one fell swoop.

[tinstar]

Three monsters.. [Which meant that Hannibal wasn't the Great Red Dragon in question.] You catchin' Serial killers with serial killers? Weird form of fishin' and I'd say that it works but considerin' how you look...

How'd they destroy your family? [Will seemed modern enough, so the question wasn't so much to place him in time, but to gauge how deeply he'd been touched by the job that, apparently, overtook him.]

[this_ismydesign]

I'm a very good fisherman. [ Will said, not boasting just giving the truth of accomplishment. ]

Hannibal sent Dolarhyde, the Dragon, after my wife and step-son. They barely escaped with their lives and Molly was seriously injured. [ Stopping at a window, Will looked out at the white out chaos just beyond the glass. ]

Hannibal was put out that I hadn't come to see him in three years.

[tinstar]

[It didn't strike the Marshal as boasting only because he'd said similar things. Game recognized Game, when it came to case closed percentages. Those kind of delusions were hard to maintain if untrue in actual situations. That all being said, Raylan wouldn't trust Will and his fishing of anything til he understood more about the man.

His eyebrows lifted again, unevenly.]

He was put out so he tried to have you killed? [Raylan wasn't going to be saying much - killing someone in self defence or to keep your family safe is.. something he wouldn't have any issue doing.]

Talk about attached. What was his issue? Pissed that your cat and mouse game ended? The lack of attention? From you or the law, whichever fits..

[this_ismydesign]

[ Game did know game, and when Will looked back on this conversation he would have to tip his hat to Raylan for his own skill. Normally Will would not have spoken so openly or intimately about his dance with Hannibal. Raylan was right to leverage the circumstances and the ex-profiler's current confused mental state.

Will might not be pleased at the manipulation, but he would certainly respect it. However, back to the story. ]

Not myself directly, at that time. [ Will corrected. ] He gave up trying to kill me after the first five attempts.

[ Long story. ]

Hannibal had fallen in love with me. [ He explained in low and measured tones. ] He would never accept the idea that anyone came above him in my attentions. [ There was a long list of dead bodies to bear that out. ]

But Hannibal never makes a move that has one single consequence. By sending the Dragon after my family, he also helped work his way further inside Dolarhyde's head. [ Will lifted a hand and made the motions of a puppeteer pulling strings. ] Hannibal regained his agency in the world.

[tinstar]

[A smart man doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth, he throws a saddle on it and rides. Chances like this, nearly unfettered access to what Raylan assumed was, at least, largely the truth as Will interpreted it, were rare enough that he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.

Love. Raylan couldn't help but feel like his own situation was personally being singled out with the statement, like the Universe was taking swing after swing at him.

Terrifying to think though, what a crazed love like he was hearing be described could do.]

Playin' the long game. [Raylan comments, mostly to himself as he kept his eyes on Will.] But you've solved that now, haven't you. [His chin lifted.] You said taking down the dragon wasn't a tidy thing but Hannibal and the Dragon aren't the same. You deal with one, then go after the other?

.. Sounds like one hellva night.

[this_ismydesign]

Fishing requires patience. [ Will said simply. He was quiet then, still pacing as he watched Raylan.

He stopped. Paused in place. Then turned and started to pace the other direction. ]

Was it a justified shoot, Marshall?

[tinstar]

Good things happen to those who wait. [A common saying that served him plenty well. He just happened to wait for Stupid to do it's thing.

His chin lifted a little, eyes narrowing at the question and the sudden attention. He almost felt like there was a plane of glass between them and Will was pacing the confines of his own cage. Maybe the metaphor wasn't far off from the truth.]

Was what a justified shot? [Oh no, nothing given freely here, not right now.]