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

[thering]

"No, it was a- there is a video store in town. But you may need to ask him about the title and what the packaging might look like. I do believe it had this... spiral mark on the box." Doc wasn't marked, himself, so he can't show it to Five. He wouldn't have even known that the mark is already gone.

"I appreciate the thought, but. Next time I guess you oughta just drink it on my behalf," Doc sighs about the whiskey. Raylan had thought to bring him some too. At this point he's not even worried that he's giving off dependent, alcoholic vibes. They have too many other things on their plate.

The commission and all the rest of it is all very interesting talk. Clearly not something that Doc has ever seen or experienced. It makes sense that he would look for a briefcase; evidence of some sort of timeline interference, and definitely more important than a bag of clothes or trinkets that Doc was thinking of.

"Well I'm still alive so clearly someone took their eyes off the ball," Doc jokes, not realising what being one of those agents entail. "The way I see it, they are either like me, attained eternal longevity through some unnatural means, or like yourself, able to move through the years in a matter of seconds. Maybe they do have a sophisticated briefcase, or some other object that can help them traverse through the ages. But we have to bear in mind that none of the clocks in this whole damn town can agree on what time it is. Hell, hardly any of us can agree on what year it was before we came here. The years could simply be numbers and the whole concept of time... might not be so linear here as the way I conceive of it."

Doc knows he's in well over his head. It doesn't bother him as much as it probably should. He knows he's more of a doer than a theoriser. But in this particular instance, there isn't much he can do. Arguably there isn't much he can do when it comes to anything in Mathias. He's just been trucking along quite happily probably spinning his wheels. But hey, since they're throwing out anything that might stick, he doesn't mind playing at that game for a little bit.

"They must have had some way of agreeing on when to conduct their business, something regular, not dependent on the clocks or the crazy weather. You'd never know when the shops are open or closed or when it was time to send your children to school otherwise. Maybe we need to start there?"

[fika]

“And the spiral is significant?” He’s not been marked either, and neither did he see anyone who was, but hearing about it now...

He makes a mental note to follow up with Dean, in that case. If something else doesn’t come up and knock them on their ass.

There’s a crooked little smirk, though, arms folded. “Oh, I have. Had to wrangle a bottle away from Constantine though,” it’s mostly a joke, though with Five, it’s hard to tell. “But, didn’t want you to feel too left out.” To be fair, any of them here could be easily accused of alcoholic dependencies.

Five’s expression withers, a little, at Doc’s following comment. Something that’s almost a wince, a single twitch in the corner of an eye as he looks away. “Yeah. That's not a bad thing, you know. There's better places to be than on their radar.” Though honestly, it didn’t sound like the Commission was ever remotely part of Doc’s world. If they had discovered inter-dimensional travel, there is no way he wouldn't have heard about it.

So, he’s going to run on the assumption that Doc will never know about the Commission any more than what Five himself says. “Actually, how did your longevity come about?” He can’t say he wasn’t curious. Since they were sharing, and all.

“And don’t remind me. I'm just about ready to toss any clock I see into the trash as a matter of principle,” the clocks are a slap-in-the-face sort of reminder.

The idea that Doc says makes sense. A lot of sense. If they go with the theory of time irrelevance, even to the previous residents, then that means they must have had some sort of other way of keeping track.

“What, like phone calls?” His delivery is wry, but not dismissive. This is a very good point. And once again, a little too close to what his aforementioned former employer would have done. Its the Board of Directors all over again, and he's surprised how much he hates to think about that blood soaked memory. “...The Bulletin board, maybe?”

“But that’s assuming that time was never something anyone cared about here. And if that was the case, why the hell keep any clocks in the first place?”

[thering]

"A few people in the house I was in had the same spiral mysteriously appear overnight on their hand. Not myself though." He isn't sure what the significance of it is, or why it only tainted some of them and not others. He had confronted some spectres in the mirrors himself. He arrived unmarked and he left the house unmarked.

"You must tell me more of the commission sometime." Perhaps when he's over for dinner with Klaus. They have recently taken another New Yorker under their 1306 Phillips Drive wing who proclaims to be quite decent in the kitchen. "And then I would tell you the story of the witch who granted me eternal longevity. But in short, it was through some unnatural kind of 'magic'." Doc isn't trying to be deliberately cryptic - he just doesn't know how it actually works. All he did was say yes.

...a bit like marriage, really. Come to think of it. Would have explained why his fell apart.

Anyway.

"If I ran a business here I would not call you everyday to tell you my shop is open. The telephone did not even work in the house I was in, although perhaps the blizzard had damaged the line." In either case, even setting the tediousness aside, the phone did not seem reliable enough.

Five did raise a good point - no need for clocks if there is no need for time itself. So there must be a need for clocks. Perhaps...

"Perhaps each clock is timing something. If we knew which clock to consult we might have been able to foretell a three day long stretch of night. And a different clock is aligned with the shops' opening hours. And a different clock yet again for Sunday service." If that were the case then some clocks could tell the same time or at least be aligned to move at the same speed in every building that has a clock.

"I suppose at the end of the day it could simply be the battery cells running out of charge after such a long time, causing them all to go out of sync. That would be the simplest explanation. But it may be worth exploring other possibilities too."

[fika]

"Huh - no one had any of that in the mansion," outwardly, it doesn't sound significant, aside from the fact that it came and went away all by itself like. Like hives, if it was more 'cult shit' and less allergies. "At the risk of sounding paranoid, I really doubt that that's anything great."

He makes a face, even if in that sense, they'd make for an even exchange of stories. But it would also mean delving more into what the Commission stood for. Maybe even what he did, or what they made him. "It's nothing exciting, but. Maybe." Maybe a moonshine glass in.

The magic stuff...is still a bit beyond him, even now, even with everything (honestly, as is the marriage stuff). But it makes more sense now, that when they first met, Doc had mentioned more along the same vein - that maybe this was the cause of magic. Kind of like Constantine.

He isn't being cryptic. It's enough of an answer for Five to get the idea and move on until a better time to bring it up. If at all.

He listens on, contemplating the idea of the clocks instead. It isn't out of the realm of possibilities. "Either could be just about as likely, at this point," he says, pulling his right sleeve up enough to show the wristwatch. "Except, this one works. I found it here," it's offered to Doc, slipped from the wristband. "Every time I look at it, it's a different time. And I mean like, hours difference."

He's poured over this enough, eyes flicking back to the walls over his bed, chalk mostly wiped way from the equations he's scrawled in his obsessive attempts at solving this one thing alone.

"Another possibility is that whatever event caused everyone here to disappear must have messed with the passage of time, too. Maybe, it's still messing with it." It would make sense.

Sure, the batteries running out also made the most mundane sense, save for the wristwatch. "Whatever this is, it's a symptom, not a cause."

[thering]

Doc takes the watch, holds it at arm's length and squints a bit like the old man he claims to be, watching it move.

"If it is of no use to you, why are you keeping it on your person?" Doc flips the watch around to see if there is anything engraved on the back. Sure enough, when he flips it back over, more than mere seconds had just passed according to the faulty timepiece. How bizarre. He holds the watch back out to Five.

"Anything strange ever happen to you while you have been here? I would not claim to understand how your... moving around works, but. Have you ever tried to move from one place to another but ended up skipping through some time instead?" It would be difficult to tell without a working clock but Five could have tried to blink into the adjacent room and ended up covered in dust not seeing whoever he was expecting to see there, or meeting the original inhabitants of the town by accident or something.

"Would there not be other consequences to the desynchronising of time, not solely evidenced by the clock? Would the- bread not go mouldy or the milk not spoil at random intervals? Should some of us not be experiencing some physical changes if months or years are passing in a matter of seconds?"

not me researching quantum theory of time and realizing i'm not smart enough for it LMAO

[fika]

Do you need some reading glasses there, or...

A short, singular chuckle as he takes the wristwatch back after Doc has witnessed his point. He shrugs as he throws the loop back around his wrist, running through the motion of fastening it back up. "To know if something changes? Or - what if there's a way to regulate time around a single object? Or a single person?" There's a shrug. Far be it to assume he would let the extent of his powers go completely. "Call it a running experiment."

"And no, I haven't. Which is probably a good thing." Though that is a ...thought. Which kind of goes back to looking for a weaker point in the space-time continuum. "Besides, my powers have been more limited here, not less. But," he adds wryly. "I'll let you know if I start loosing hours. Deal?"

It's funny how Doc was really speaking his language. Underneath the schooled expression, one might note a giddy sort of excitement, which is also promptly obvious from how quickly he launches into further theory. "You'd think, right? But that still assumes," here comes the chalk, picked up from the desk drawer, before he starts drawing on the wall. A line is drawn first. "That time is linear here. Which is a safe assumption, because for most people, it usually is. But, time can change everything because it's relative." A few circles are drawn next. "We've seen the broken down houses here, too, right? Those look like they were stuck in the 60s, along with clothes and photographs as proof. The newer houses are the nineties."

"So what if we take linear time out of the equation? Making wherever Mathias is it's own dimension, and its time a closed loop, of sorts? So then whatever happens to the bread, and the milk is reset at the end of each day," he thickens the line of the circle a few times more, chalk dust sticking to the dark sleeves of his shirt. "It would also explain why food is replenished."

"This doesn't explain how though, but I'm starting to think it will fall under the category of magic, more than quantum theory and relative theory." He shrugs, dusting his hands off with an almost satisfied little smirk.

hey as long as five gets it right? 🤷

[thering]

Yeeeeah no Doc is most definitely not speaking Five's language. You can lead a 160-something year old horse to the space-time water but you can't expect him to do much more than stand there and stare blankly at the lines and the circles. After a long stretch of silence and a few blinks Doc takes a deep breath and tilts his head, eyes narrowed in clear confusion.

"...But I've already drunk the milk and. Gone to the. Bathroom."

Yeah. 'The milk is gone' is what Doc has after staring at the Closed Loop of Mathias. Did he or did he not drink the milk then if the milk resets? If he didn't drink the milk then what-... happens in the bathroom his body? Could he have simultaneously drunk and not yet drunk the milk? Is the milk half-drunk? Doc needs to be half-drunk in a minute if he's following this rabbit hole down into a pretzel-like convoluted state of mind.

"I just. Mean. How does one unfry an egg?"