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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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."

"I've been rolling up my cuffs so far," Malcolm said, glancing down his jeans at his rolled up cuffs. He gave Raylan a cheeky look at his guess. "Actually, I own jeans that fit and several pairs of sweatpants and a bunch of t-shirts, mostly in earth tones, and some sweaters," he clarified. He looked at Raylan. "I can handle flannel. Nobody here gets to choose their style."

Raylan kept his devilish grin on as he looked over. "I choose flannel, but don't tell anyone that. Flannel and henley shirts when I'm not wearing bits of a suit." Needless to say, Raylan didn't have a lot of clothes.

"Here it is," he said with a lift of his chin at the building as they got closer. "It's already been cleared, so feel free to lead the way in."

"Flannel works on you," Malcolm protested. "It enhances the whole... rugged..." He made a gesture that sort of encompassed Raylan and then realized he was probably being weird and possibly obvious and his voice trailed off.

He cleared his throat.

As they approached the building his analytical gaze swept over it, taking in details. At Raylan's blessing, he looked both surprised and pleased and opened the door, stepping inside and looking around.

"It's been picked over, huh?" he noted, moving to look at the racks to the left of the door.

His expression tilted and curled in amusement, giving Malcolm all the room he might need to finish that sentence. Raylan doubted Malcolm would stumble into anything too revealing but the stumble at all said enough. Not like he needed it confirmed, but Raylan liked the attention and he'd let Malcolm flounder, just to enjoy the look on his face.

"A few times, I imagine. No magical fairy to collect usable clothes from the houses, relocate them here.. Maybe once it's bare it'll refill. If not, I suggest we tear the sign down so we're not giving hope to people. Or going and refilling the racks with what we find ourselves.. Probably a smarter option, that one."

"It's not like we don't have time," Malcolm agreed brightly, giving him a big smile.

A project to work on together, as well, was not unwelcome...

He picked through a few more items on the rack and sighed.

"These are all lumberjack size," he lamented. "I'm... going to go check the women's section for anything suitably unisex," he said with a bit of a wince as he headed over.

"All the time in the world today," he promised with a smile as he ambled around behind Malcolm, fingering a few of the empty hangers with an idle finger. The smile spread with a huff as he watched Malcolm change racks.

"I'm tellin' ya. We go through a few houses here, I'm sure we can find you somethin' that fits. I'd loan you some of my shirts but I've only got 3. You might be able to find some tshirts? If you don't mind a scoop neckline."

Malcolm huffed a smirk over at Raylan.

"Yeah, I hear scoop necklines are very in this season," he joked. "I have a bunch of scavenged t-shirts I just don't have warm shirts."

He pulled a sweater off a shelf and held it up. "What do you think?"

"Shouldn't it matter less if they're sized 'lumberjack'?" he teased with a glance over before dedicating his attention, chin lifting a little. "I like the color. Almost matches your eyes." Not that he would have said that if anyone else was here but.. they weren't.

He should have been looking for belts.

"Do you need to try it on first? Gonna model for me?"

“I will,” Malcolm said, shrugging out of his coat, “because I’m only taking it if you don’t think it makes me look completely ridiculous. I’m telling you, no men lived in this town that had my build and were even half an inch less than six feet.”

He pulled the sweater on over the relatively thin long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. The extra room in the chest let it stretch to accommodate his shoulders, overall it fit just snugly enough to layer easily under his coat without being uncomfortable under the arms. And it didn’t hang over his hands.

He turned around with a flourish.

“What do you think?”

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