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

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gave him a little face shrug.

"Do a little fencing, a little axe throwing... study a lot of murders." He looked up to glance at Neal. "You really don't have to cook a special dish just for me."

[conning]

"You fence? Me too. Are you any good?" Too bad the likelihood of finding equipment was far less here than a chess set. The fact that Malcolm threw axes was just another oddity to add to an already singular man.

As far as the cooking went, Neal shrugged. "I was raised polite. Besides, I need to pull my weight."

[abrightboy]

"I was on the Harvard fencing team," Malcolm told him with a grin. "Brought a scimitar to practice once. They hated me. But I won my share, so they put up with it."

He would argue that Neal preparing meals for the group was pulling his weight; Malcolm was used to looking after his own food issues. But if he really didn't mind.....

"Where did you train?"

[conning]

“You’re a Harvard boy.” Neal grins. “Feds and Harvard, I swear.”

It certainly seemed like a lot of them came from there at least.

Neal cores his apple tidily, setting it aside and picking up another. “Nowhere in particular.” He shrugs. “I never went to college. I learned later, mostly in France.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm laughed. "I wanted to get into Quantico. I had the background check working against me so I had to have the academic credentials working for me," he explained.

What with his dad being a famous murderer. He could keep that from the rank and file he worked for and directly under for most of his career there, but the ones that vetted acceptance? They would know.

"But you trained in France? That's cool. Like a Musketeer!" he enthused. "Sorry," he said with a huff of a self-deprecating laugh. "Big Dumas fan."

[conning]

Neal can’t help it. He’s entirely charmed. “‘There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body's sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers forever.’ Never apologize for passion.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm beamed at him.

"That's my favourite book," he exclaimed. "I actually caught a killer a couple of months before I was brought here that was enacting vengeance with direct references to it."

[conning]

Malcolm’s brightness is infectious. Neal can’t even be dramatically put off by the reference to murder—he did just say not to apologize for passion, and one way or another, dissecting murder was one of Malcolm’s passions.

He raises his eyebrows. “Points for creativity. Were they wrongfully imprisoned, or was it most of an aesthetic choice?”

[abrightboy]

"A powerful family framed her for a boating accident caused by her boyfriend - one of them - and left her for dead in the fire of the wreckage and the ocean because the guy's father never approved of her and was happy to dispose of two problems with one cold-blooded coverup," he explained, putting down his next completed apple to pick up another.

[conning]

Neal paused in his own peeling, ruining the perfect curl forming underneath his apple. "So, y'know, an average Tuesday."

A pause. "The coverup came out, at least?"

[abrightboy]

"Oh, yeah," Malcolm told him with a satisfied gusto. "We went back and nailed him to the wall."

He looked at Neal. "Did you ever have one of those? Where you solve your case and it solves another, older case at the same time?"

[conning]

Neal considered it for a moment before a case occurred to him. He brightened, remembering who was involved. “Yeah, actually. There was a bond theft. We were helping an insurance investigator look for them, and someone tried to kill her. Turns out she was close to finding something bigger than stolen bonds. It led to a guy who actually killed someone in the eighties and took his identity. Stole his whole real estate empire.”

Neal’s expression twisted into disgust for a moment as he went back to peeling the apple. “I had to go under as an assassin that time. Accidentally, but still. Not my favorite cover.”

[abrightboy]

"...An assassin? How did you get into his mindset?" Malcolm asked curiously. Neal had expressed a distaste for violence that seemed to suggest he couldn't understand it, but maybe Malcolm misunderstood.

[conning]

He shifted, a movement that in someone younger could be called a squirm. “I just...”

Neal’s gaze dropped to the countertop and he cleared his throat. “I stripped everything good out of what I am.”

[abrightboy]

"Well. That would work on most people, probably. Though assassins... there's more to them than being morally bereft. They kill because they like it, but they don't do it for fun like, say, my father. They get into the business because they like holding the power of life and death, but they'll only do it for money. It's all distasteful and... lacking in any interesting motivation at all. It's a business transaction," he mused, finishing up his apple and setting it down. "They feel nothing about their targets. They may as well be inanimate objects."

[conning]

“I didn’t mean....” Neal fiddled with one of the apple peels. “I meant stripping everything good out of being a criminal. Take out sense of adventure, the joy of accomplishment. Even the thrill of the score. The assassins I’ve met are just what you said—they don’t see people.”

He shrugs one shoulder. “It would be like looking at a painting and seeing nothing but dollar signs.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm leaned on the counter, giving him a small smile.

"What do you see when you look at a painting?"

[conning]

Neal returned it, though there was something sad in the expression. "Magic. Just... magic."

[abrightboy]

“What’s your favourite painting in the whole world?” he asked with interest.

[conning]

He almost said Raphael's St. George and the Dragon. It was on the tip of his tongue, poised to fall, before he stopped himself.

It was Kate's favorite. Not his. He loved Raphael, but that painting specifically, he loved because of her.

His favorite.

His favorite painting in the whole world.

Neal crossed his arms and braced them against the countertop, unaware of the dreaminess in his blue eyes.

"There's never one favorite," he said, finally. "There's Monet's Water-Lily Pond, Symphony in Rose seen at twilight in the Musée d'Orsay the first time you ever walk through Paris alone. There's Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold under your gloves a moment before you kiss your partner because it's too perfect of a chance to let pass." He smiled tenderly at the memories hanging invisibly in the air. "There's a Haustenberg returned to its heirs and a museum that can't admit they have a fake without revealing they stole the real one in the first place."

He made a tiny, amused noise, focus dropping to the countertop again. "There's Degas' The Entrance of the Masked Dancers, and being among the first to see it since it disappeared a half a century ago."

Neal shrugged helplessly. "There's never one favorite. It's impossible."

[abrightboy]

Perfect. He was hoping that was where Neal’s face would go. It wasn’t about whether he had one favourite or ten; it was about reminding him of things that made him happy instead of things that made his stomach churn.

“Don’t forget the original Dogs Playing Poker,” Malcolm teased gently, picking up the last unpeeled apple and starting on it. “A classic.”

[conning]

“Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. It’s actually part of a series of eighteen paintings he did, sixteen of which were commissioned to advertise for Brown & Bigelow cigars. Not particularly valuable, over all, but—”

Neal stopped. Grinned slowly. “You did that on purpose.” He ducked his head like that would hide the smile. “...Thanks.”

[abrightboy]

“Just because I normally apply psychology to Evil, doesn’t mean I can’t use it for Good,” Malcolm joked. He looked up from the apple to glance at Neal. “You’ve never been interested curating an art gallery or something? It sounds like you’d be good at it. Or curating someone’s private collection. If we lived in the same New York, I’d tell you to give my mother a call. She’d love to hear about how to make her collection more enviable from a pleasant looking face,” he remarked with a grin.

[conning]

“You use it for Good, wherever it’s applied,” Neal said. He believed that entirely.

He gave another one-shouldered shrug, amused at the thought of working for Malcolm’s mother. “It’s crossed my mind, but there’s no equivalency test to take that proves a fox won’t go after the hens if you let him in. What’s she like? Your mom?”

[abrightboy]

“If a fox is fat and happy, he doesn’t eat the hens,” Malcolm pointed out reasonably. “My mother is... dramatic, overbearing... fierce. I think you two would get along. As long as you can get through the first meeting without her eating you alive, of course. She appreciates people who have taste.”