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.

navigation | faq | setting | mod contact

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In this case, it was okay if Malcolm started. They were face to face on a bed after all. Nevermind how painfully aware Raylan was of how far apart they were.

"Maybe it was givin' you a break from the hell. Even if that's.. not really a break for you, I get that. Who knows how aware whatever is behind this is. Could as be that you'd be pushed into bein' an agent of chaos in a place not.. I don't know. Suited to withstand it. My question is, why displace all of us, in that case? Then again, as little as we know, maybe it put you there to bother you more. Starve you from your resources, your coping mechanisms, your comforts, however few they are here."

Malcolm's eyes lifted back to his face.

"It has occurred to me.... they bring people here from different... dimensions or whatever you want to call it. Even different planets. They refill the food 'magically'. They refill the cigarettes magically. It's well within their means to provide my medication. They just don't. Not even in the medical clinic. Also... when I was there with Doc, I took some rubber gloves. They weren't refilled when I went back." When he got trapped. "The stuff in the clinic doesn't come back." Not that it was super useful or anything. "They pick and choose." He took a breath and pressed his lips together. "And then they put me in a house with other people and no restraints. Maybe they want me to hurt someone. We got everything... under control without me hurting anyone after I got here and then they... put me in that situation again. What if they want me to hurt someone?" He leaned forward slightly with frightened wide eyes. "I almost hurt Negan," he whispered urgently.

"Hey," Raylan said, reaching over to grab Malcolm's shoulder gently. "You mighta almost hurt him, but you didn't, did ya?" This time.

God, all he wanted to do was pull Malcolm in and wrap him up. For now, he resisted. Laying down had been a mistake, but he was here now and leaving would only cause questions and harm.

"Maybe they do. I can't say that's not a valid theory," he admitted quietly. "Might be somethin' to keep in mind when things are gettin' bad. Take the measures you gotta take.. But if you do, if that happens-" He couldn't lie and say it might not, not at this rate. "-We're not gonna let anything happen to you, you know that, right?"

Malcolm chewed his lip, nodding.

"But they made sure you weren't there," he pointed out. "I'm not... I've met the Deans and Johns of this town. If I lose it on the wrong person, they're going to kill me." For all that he considered just... falling off the lighthouse stairs, he was mostly sure - most of the time - that he didn't want to die. "I have to... I have to keep it under control."

Raylan clucked under his breath and relented to himself and the situation, shifting his head propping arm out as he pulled Malcolm in. He couldn't do anything about the Deans or the Johns of the town except kill them first and that was NOT on the sanest person's agenda.

No, nothing he could about that but what he could do was deal with the now.

"Then you'll come back. And we'll all know you did your very best to not lose it, and welcome you back in." Unless Malcolm didn't come back at all. That would be markedly worse.

Malcolm squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face into Raylan’s shoulder as he pulled him into an embrace. Some tension eased out of him and he let out a shaky breath, gripping the back of that same shoulder for dear life.

“Not all the dead come back,” he murmured numbly. “We don’t know what happens when someone gets murdered by another one of... us. I don’t want to be part of finding out.” Neither as the killer nor the victim, no matter how unintentional.

"I don't either," he promised. "But for what it's worth, John and Dean ain't gonna kill you. They might get a little rough with you, gettin' you under control, but they're reasonable." He could smell the faint traces of the last time Malcolm showered in the hair tucked into his shoulder and he squeezed Malcolm gently before pulling back a fraction to look in his face.

"John I understand. But Dean? What'd he do?"

“He didn’t... do anyth... I mean, he was a bit... aggressive when I pulled him out of the snow so he wouldn’t freeze, but. It’s more that he... kills monsters. And if I’m out of my mind and violent... what does that make me?” he pointed out quietly.

"It makes you a man out of your mind and violent. Not a monster." Raylan wasn't going to run around or feed Malcolm any bullshit. He could be a real threat if he was too far gone. Staring at those too captivating blue eyes, he was surrounded by them, another urge rose; this one to cup Malcolm's face and wipe away some of the fearful concern on it. He knew it would work.

He knew he shouldn't. It was taking advantage and he'd already bent far enough for one day, laying here almost intimately with the smaller man. He also knew he shouldn't think about it too much, otherwise, he'd cave and leave in a quiet self doubt and loathing.

"And they both know that's not really you. I can't say it for fact, but I think Dean's much more likely to knock you out and tie you up than kill you.... You're not a problem to be solved." Nevermind how Raylan would react to it, that was. Something different all together.

It did work. Of course it worked. His eyes fluttered a moment at the touch, his grip on Raylan’s shoulder tightened unconsciously a fraction.

Could Raylan hear his heartbeat? It felt like it was thundering in his throat all of a sudden.

But after a moment of soothing voice and grounding touch, everything smoothed out through a shaky breath.

“...Negan said I have an impressive swing,” he admitted with a breath of a laugh. “He wasn’t even mad.”

He could feel it jackhammering under the edges of his last two fingers, echoing a similar jump in his own heartbeat. What was he doing, enjoying the way Malcolm's eyes fluttered under his touch? He had to stop.

"See?" Raylan smiled crookedly and withdrew his hand back to settle over the thickest part of Malcolm's forearm. "I think he's seen some shit too. How'd he get you to calm down and see straight?"

"From... what I can remember when I snapped out of it... I think he grabbed the poker and tackled me onto the ground until I knew where I was."

His brow pinches slightly as he thinks about it.

"I just remember looking around and... there were just... pieces everywhere."

"Sounds like the way we wake you up, sometimes.. All that matters is that neither of you were hurt," Raylan reiterated, thumb brushing back and forth over Malcolm's skin. That was all that ever mattered. Raylan hoped it was a good few set of days before they were separated again, if they had to be.

"Feel like you're up to goin' into town, seein' if we can't find you a few belts to upgrade from this strappin' you down like vacation luggage business?" It came with a soft smile, what he hoped was a clear indication that he wasn't rushing if Malcolm wasn't ready, but it was a door open to them.

The 'vacation luggage' comment made him laugh as it came with the mental image of him bungeed to the roof of a station wagon.

"I'm ready," he admitted, pushing himself up to sitting a little reluctantly because it meant dislodging Raylan's hand. "Do we have, like, a punch or something in the garage so I can make more holes in the belts or do I have to improvise something?"

The laugh was good; Raylan was worried that the joke might have stuck too close to home, but seeing Malcolm have a sense of humor about it meant good things. It meant that the fact he suffered these things didn't crush him all on its own.

"If we don't have screwdrivers, we've got Doc's sharpened butterknife and we can punch one that way. I've done it before, it's not that hard." Raylan pushed up to throw his legs over, hand carding through his hair with a breath as he righted things within himself. He'd enjoyed that too much for it to be okay, but that churning would be chewed over later.

"Meet you downstairs in ten?"

Malcolm nodded, already feeling colder in the absence of that warmth. But it wasn't his to claim. He was lucky to have a little.

"I'll be there," he promised, getting up to look for his jeans and his shoes.

Raylan nodded, pushed to his feet and strode out, taking the time in the main bathroom to wash his face and teeth, pull himself back into the most general mask that he wore in the world, instead of the softer one that Malcolm had gotten a glance at.

Nine minutes later, he was downstairs, hat and jacket on over the tshirt and red flannel top-shirt that underlined it all.

"Ready for the cold," he asked as Malcolm came down, leading towards the door.

Malcolm was doing up his coat over his own thin but long-sleeved shirt, the too-long sleeves sticking out of his coat sleeves to half cover his hands.

He looked up at the question and nodded, a smile on his face, the prospect of the trip already buoying his often rocky spirits.

Raylan nodded again and led the way out, huffing a breath at the weather. "I'm sure you're used to this kinda cold, bein' from New York but I am lookin' forward to spring and summer already. More snow then I signed up for. Anyway, if the clothin' shop doesn't have what you need, we can start hittin' up empty houses. Bets are on that these people had more than one belt."

"I prefer spring and autumn, as seasons go. Winter has just a bit too much of an edge."

And his father was arrested in the winter.

"I might look for a heavier shirt, though. At the store. I have trouble finding clothes that fit me around here."

"And summers too hot?" He nodded with a smirk. He could understand that.

"This your first time to the clothin' store? We should look for more things your size. What are you, anyway. Medium or small?" Raylan would guess small but only because he was a medium himself.

“Yeah, summer isn’t conducive to the three layers of clothing I like to wear,” he joked with a self-deprecating laugh.

He looked over at the next question. “I take a medium, but I usually shop at stores that offer a shorter sleeve and leg length,” he admitted. “Everything here is... big and tall.”

Well, it was probably regular but that was too big and tall for him.

"I'm sure we can find you somethin' to fit your arm length," Raylan assured with a confident look and half a nod before he focused on their path. "If not your legs, then your arms at least. You're not that little. But I'm glad that you're not bitchin' about wearin' normal type clothes and not tailored three piece suits."

He wasn't that little. Malcolm almost blushed.

"Well. This," he said, gesturing to his coat, "is a woman's coat," he confessed. "But it's not super-feminine and the sleeves are shorter."

At the next comment he laughed. "That would be a first world problem," he noted. "I do own clothes at home that aren't expensive bespoke suits."

"Really?" Raylan looked him over. "I couldn't tell." He could tell. "Maybe we'll find someone handy with a needle that can start hemming things."

He could hope. Was there a wishlist for talent to come into their little hellhole?

"Two pairs of sweatpants and a teeshirt?" he guessed with a smirk as the rest of town started to come into focus. "If you can stomach flannel, there'll be somethin' for you."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject