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

"Or do not. It is up to you." He trusts Malcolm would know what is best to do in those circumstances, if the time comes.

"Did you want to get out of the house today? Two days cooped up indoors, you might want some fresh air and to stretch your legs." He is finished with what needed to be done next door.

"Perhaps we could go looking for those new houses we ended up in?" Doc suggests as he puts his hat back on and adjusts it. "Raylan's had whiskey..."

Raylan had taken Malcolm to town the previous afternoon, after his nap, to pick up some belts from the clothing store to improve his restraints after he broke one the night before they were taken. He’d spent the evening in his room, quietly working them into his system.

After the incident in the kitchen, he was eager to get outside the walls for a bit. Doc’s invitation brought an eager and pleased lift to his features.

“I’d like that,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll get my coat,” he told Doc, all but bounding out of the room.

It was a bit sad that he wasn’t comfortable going out there without a reliable escort, he knew. He was a grown man. But it was himself he was afraid of. He needed someone there that wouldn’t let anyone kill him if he broke a little. He wasn’t confident he could hide the cracks in him right now.

Doc had intended to go looking for those houses yesterday but he had gone to the museum first to make sure it was still sealed and bumped into Yennefer who was bleeding from an arrow wound, a most strange injury to have sustained from another time and place perhaps, and there had been no time for anything else after that.

Deciding that it would be better to bring the first aid kit with him, both in case something happens to himself or Malcolm or if he has another encounter with someone wounded like Yennefer, he borrows from the other kits to pad this one out before attaching it to his gun belt, along with his torch, knife and flathead screwdriver.

He'd only just come in from outside so he's more or less prepared to go, heading down and sidestepping the pendant light on his way to where he waits by the front door. Arranging the bottles of moonshine on the shelf can wait until after they're back.

Malcolm jumped off the stairs from three steps up, still pulling on the second sleeve of his coat, but shoes on his feet and sweater underneath it.

“Ready!” he called. “What part of town do you think we should try?” he asked as he drew up by Doc.

"I have checked the centre of town but did not make it far enough north yesterday," he muses as he pulls the door open, letting Malcolm out before he follows him out. If they haven't yet gotten sick of the snow they likely soon will, but this is picturesque and calm compared to the recent storm and blizzard. This is manageable.

"Wouldn't take us too long to do a walk around the perimeter of the place."

"So, I have a question," Malcolm said, zipping up his coat as they walked. "When you were in town, did you notice if anything was... different? Because I have a theory as to why they... crated us all up the other day."

"Different how? The buildings I had passed were the same, covered in more snow perhaps." The blizzard might have done some damage but he hadn't seen any drastic changes in the landscape.

"You know I would have thought that between the five of us at least one would have woken up if someone broke in and took us in the middle of the night."

“I don’t think it was as straight forward as physically coming in and taking us. I think I was awake. I woke up... pretty much the way I usually do. Except I’d fallen off the bed. I broke one of my restraints. Raylan stayed with me a little bit. Talked. I... wouldn’t have let myself go back to sleep with only one restraint,” Malcolm told him, glancing over. “They put us out somehow.”

"That would be convenient," Doc comments dryly. Something to put them under so easily. Take them from this house without even disturbing the rug. Put their coat and shoes on, even. That's perhaps the strangest violation of all - someone dressed them up like dolls and put them in little dollhouses away from each other, proceeded to do unsettling things to make them feel vulnerable, have them doubt their senses.

"So why do you think we were taken?"

Malcolm leaned towards him slightly, like he was telling secrets.

“What if they needed to do some kind of work on the town? To fix something or add something or change something. Work they couldn’t do remotely, the way they handle the food refills and... manipulating us. So they put us in crates for a couple days, like unruly puppies.”

"Right." Doc narrows his eyes slightly, averting his gaze, trying to think if he might have missed something. He has only surveyed the outside of some buildings, he hadn't gone inside to check if everything is still the same as it was before they had been taken from town. It would be impossible to track these changes unless they surveyed every single building they have access to thoroughly, make detailed notes or take too many photographs. There must be some easier way of tracking this - some way they could devise so that they would know if something had been disturbed somewhere.

"We would have to ask everyone, if they have noticed if anything has changed where they have been holed up at."

"Apparently, John hosted some sort of a meeting yesterday. I'll go check in with him later, see if anything interesting came out of it. And then maybe we can put something on the bulletin board asking people to inform us if they find any... irregularities like that," Malcolm suggested.

"I can't see why that would be a bad idea, but... Perhaps leave my name out of it, if you are to get any information out of Mister Constantine." They have not yet reconciled and he expects that John might not be as cooperative once the cowboy's name comes up in conversation, even if it is for the greater good of the town.

"I wasn't going to mention anyone else... but... why is that? Did something happen?" Malcolm asked, looking over curiously.

Malcolm's piercing blue eyes meet a softer, deeper shade of blue in Doc's and for a moment he contemplates shrugging it off and changing the subject before deciding that he would at least explain and still shrug it off, but let Malcolm ask any questions he might want to.

"We had an argument, before the weather worsened. He uninvited me from his residence. I do not wish to involve you or anyone else in our disagreement. Suffice to say, I assume he would tell you nothing if he thought I had any involvement in your inquiry."

"Ah," Malcolm said in understanding. "Well, he still might tell me nothing; he doesn't like me either. He says I ask too many questions."

He slid his hands into his pockets.

"There were weird noises in the attic and the basement at the boarding house. Do you think the people who live there are in danger? I've never heard things like that at our house."

"Men of our ilk," which is the only time Doc will admit to having anything in common with the Briton, "we do not much like personal questions." Asking too many questions is not necessarily a bad thing, especially for a lawman and investigator, but someone who accuses another of doing it is often taking those questions personally.

"I think you keep whatever might attack us at bay every night," Doc jokes glibly. "Wherever we were, we all heard strange noises on those nights we were taken. The one night I did spend at the boarding house three weeks ago, there were some distant voices and nonsensical chattering. Nothing untoward had happened then. Besides, nowhere is truly safe. I trust those staying there can protect themselves."

That was fair. Malcolm nodded.

Then, pondering Doc's previous statement he smiled a bit.

"Maybe I keep away evil spirits? Like... a Hallowe'en mask?" he joked, giving Doc a cheeky sidelong look.

"I would say you are more of a protective, benevolent presence," Doc muses, pursing his lips as one hand rubs up from the middle of his thigh to his hip. He doesn't have that habit of sticking his hands in his pockets, like Malcolm, even if the weather calls for more warmth.

"Honestly I- found the events of those two nights quite unsettling," he admits, again with that nervous energy that he expends by adjusting his hat. That is the Doc Holliday equivalent of he had been scared shirtless. And it was his first admission to anyone so far, to the only person staying at 1306 that he feels he can talk to about this. He doesn't need the bravado around Raylan, Neal or Negan, but he puts it on around them anyway, wearing his casual confidence with a melodramatic flair like he can fearlessly take anything on. Maybe it's the moonshine or the thought of their expectations or- well. Whatever it is. He doesn't feel he needs to wear that same armour out here right now.

"I was sure those lanternless spectres were going to climb out of the mirrors and kill us all. I'd already caught glimpses of them moving out of the corners of my eyes. And there was nothing I could do about them, to keep them away from everyone." He had felt rather helpless, which maybe was the crux of the issue. He doesn't know. He hasn't dwelled on said issue enough to know what to make of it.

Malcolm understood fear. Fear in the face of helplessness. Helplessness to protect people when you feel like you should; like you should be able to.

"Tell me about them," Malcolm requested. "Were they like the Shadow Man across the chasm?"

"They were more like those who had been wielding the lanterns. They dwelled in the mirrors, but you could not see them hovering behind you. The mirrors were covered with cloths on the day we arrived. I gave little thought to it. I lifted a shroud and saw a phantom with its back turned. It had seemed... rather benign. I lowered the covering and carried on with my business." Almost as if he thought it might have wanted some privacy? Perhaps it's more that Doc subscribes to the belief that a man minds his own business, a phantom minds its own business, and they can inhabit the same house peacefully without incident.

"I... ended up sleeping most of the first day, so I would not say I provoked them. But perhaps another person in the house did." He does not want Malcolm feeling guilty about this, but at the same time he does want to explain away how he did not discover much of anything else on his first day. He was simply too exhausted.

"When I had awoken the cover had dropped, and I thought the spectre was looking at me. I tried to put the cloth back over it but it would not stay. The figure moved closer. Or- appeared bigger in the mirror, at least. I walked around the house, found all the mirrors to be uncovered. But the second time I surveyed the house, I counted four fewer mirrors, and there were- it had seemed like some phantoms had escaped. You could sense them moving around." Doc furrows his eyebrows, a frown on his lips and creasing his forehead. In the end they had all left the house intact, mostly unscathed, but there were moments he wasn't sure if anyone would have survived the night.

"They must be connected somehow. The lanterns. The figures. The mirrors. Maybe even to the people in those photographs."

Malcolm did not immediately assume that Doc's hard sleep had to do with his experiences in 1306. He had always assured Malcolm that his nightly disturbance was no trouble.

"That's interesting. The idea of the phantoms being connected to the people in the photos. He considered that. Or maybe the people that... view us here aren't quite... all the way in this reality. Maybe they just... are in it enough to make an impression but not enough to be defined. Maybe these are the customers at the zoo."

He looked at Doc.

"How do you think they made you sleep? The same way they did when they took us?"

"Well I think they would have been disappointed. We all kept our clothes on and we were not much of a spectacle to behold." Apart from the little bit of running around that they did do on that last night after the power went out and everyone had a little panic. "It also does not explain the noises in the ceiling and under the floorboard." He would have expected thumping on the mirrors if they were some kind of viewing window, not... haunted house shenanigans.

"I wish I could know how they do anything. Replenish the food or steal us from our beds." Doc shrugs. "Maybe we are simply too tired to notice. Or maybe there is something in the water."

Malcolm nodded, taking that in.

"Did everyone sleep the first day or just some of you?"

Maybe there was a clue in their activities.

"I did not think to ask, as things progressively went to shits the next morning, but I would say that a fair number of people in that house might have kept themselves busy throughout. Our neighbours Dean Winchester and Castiel were present in the house. I imagine they would know something I do not." Even though Dean had been supremely hung over and wandering around in his underpants and Castiel might have hurt himself trying to break out of the house, or at least worked himself to exhaustion.

"There was food though, and coffee. A first aid kit as well, and a sewing kit. We were not left to starve or turn on each other at least. That would have been more entertaining for an audience, surely."

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