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

[tinstar]

Oh he knew, Raylan was sure. He'd get around to asking about the way Doc fled like he was running from the scene of a crime, but some other time. The smack got a scoff of half a laugh but it did its job, stilling Raylan's hands and drawing his eye back over his shoulder at his too knowing companion.

No, talking isn't what they did but asking to talk also wasn't something they did and would have earned consideration enough on its own. But after the way the night and morning had gone- Any excuse that Raylan was getting ready to prepare was promptly washed away by the shameless baiting and he really was foolish enough to think that they could get away with not talking about Malcolm.

After a long second, Raylan nodded and set his boots back where they were. "Don't have to lay it on that thick, ya know," he starts as he shifts to lay back down on the bed, where he'd started his night. "The askin' would have been enough, no kindness needed. We're gonna havta go mattress huntin' tomorrow, I suppose. Should find one with a box spring though, make things more comfortable. I still think we should set up in here if we're gonna do this whole.. dorm livin' thing. I like the chairs."

[thering]

Works every time, he thinks, rather smugly, suppressing a laugh as he stretches out like a cat and folds both arms behind his head, peering up at the ceiling for a few seconds before letting his eyes flutter closed.

"Wouldn't want you feelin' like I was takin' advantage," he slurs sleepily, even though that is exactly what Doc is doing, guilting him into making him talk. They probably do need the chairs, more so than Neal does anyway. If he does any late night reading, he can do so in bed. It's not good to be drinking in bed, however. And Neal doesn't seem like the late night drinking type.

"Would be a little strange, both of us... clingin' to each other on the floor and... Malcolm strapped to the bed," Doc points out, taking his time with his words, keeping his eyes closed as he talks. Unless of course, that is not the configuration Raylan meant. In which case he can say his suggestion aloud.

[tinstar]

Judging by the onset of sleep into Henry's voice, maybe Raylan could get away without talking about what he didn't want to talk about.. Even if Henry opened up that part of the discussion. Raylan folded his hands over his stomach and took a deep breath.

"Assumin' both of us even make it down to the bed? Not particularly, I don't think. Not if you don't mind gettin' bumped into at night." Or wrapped around, or curled into, or all those soft sleep vulnerable things that Raylan had been doing with his chair as often as he could.

"The scramble up to wake Malcolm up will probably be the worst of it. What part of that is the question about? Him being strapped down or us on a bed together?"

[thering]

"Just seems to me like... mmmhlike he got more sleep last night than he had done, all these nights prior on his own," Doc observes. He turns his head towards Raylan then, breathing in deep and slow, cracking one tired eye open and then the other.

"All I'm sayin' is. I enjoy your company plenty. I would take you to bed anytime. But I'm sure he wouldn't mind some either. With or without..." Doc raises one limp arm and kinda waves it to signify the complications between them. "All that. Mmhn."

You know. Mmhn.

[tinstar]

"Now you're talkin' about us sleepin' up in bed with him," Raylan argued softly, eye kept lazily up on the ceiling and the faint shadows of light that casted around on them. It wasn't until that next statement that Raylan looked over himself.

They were talking about sleeping, Raylan had to remind himself, and he didn't have the energy to go down the other offered path right now. There were no other offered paths, at least not tonight. He was too tired to go path hopping anyway, emotionally and mentally.

"Sure, cause we fell into this one so easy." Raylan let out a breath and the tension that had come with his words and shook his head, looking back to the ceiling. "Don't know what all that you're talkin' about. Wasn't privy to this last conversation you had with him. But somehow I doubt that it had anythin' to do with kickin' either of us out."

[thering]

There was a quip about whether Raylan might have overheard anything from the bathroom, but Doc does not make it. He simply breathes out through his nose and reaches over to tug the blanket up a little higher.

"He thinks you're looking for a bedwarmer." Doc clears his throat and wiggles in bed a little, making himself comfortable. "I didn't have the time to tell him you wouldn't know what to do with one if they stuck one hand down your pants and held the other one out asking for twenty dollars."

[tinstar]

He'd kept the water running specifically to avoid that. To not hear and not be heard.

Raylan was silent for a long moment. Almost long enough that Doc might think he'd fallen asleep or just wasn't going to answer. A million different ways of answering, of batting it back ran through his head in that short time until he realized he had to say something.

"You know I've been in a whore house, right? Even if I'm never there for the.. services, you don't make it past 25 lookin' like I do without that happening a few times. Hard for him to say either way when I haven't. I told him that I wasn't as great as he thought and.." Raylan gestured to nothingness in the dark. "He suddenly understood somethin' that I didn't. I don't know. But I know what he wants. He wants a relationship." Raylan looked over.

"Doesn't seem much like its gettin' across that I don't know what the hell I'm doing or how to go about doin' it. So we're not gonna." He let a beat pass like he was almost considering saying more and then rolled over onto his side, back turned towards Doc.

"Go to sleep Henry. Daylight'll be here soon enough. I'll stay here for a bit but you'll probably wake up to coffee."

[thering]

"Oh we are never there for the services," Doc quips. No, if Raylan was telling the truth, he would believe it. Doc on the other hand, definitely doesn't mind paying for services rendered. At least there is honesty and transparency in a transaction. At least he isn't attaching strings to something he knows is not destined to last.

"I don't know what makes you think anyone knows what the hell they're doing, or how to go about doing it. But I respect that it's not what you want." Right now, at least. He knows this isn't the end of something that hasn't even started. But he won't tell Raylan that. If Malcolm could just be quiet and still for a moment, have a little faith, Raylan would come back to him and open up a little more, find a way to fill that quietness and stillness with things he thought he never wanted to share. He has done the same with Doc, after all. All their drinking does is set a time and place for it, and speed up the process.

"G'night," he says quietly, brushing the backs of his fingers against Raylan's back. He knows a touch-starved man has cravings. Had felt the way Raylan reacted before. But on this particular early morning, he will just remind Raylan that he's there, and proceed to leave him be, pulling his arm back to occupy that space between them.

[tinstar]

Having it figured out to know what they wanted. What it was like. How to navigate it with any measure of grace or some kind of dignity. The latter of which he normally wasn't worried about but they weren't talking work. Even if they picked this conversation back up, Raylan wasn't planning on throwing Wyatt into the mix, but the cagey way Doc had been talking about it, he could guess well enough why.

But for right now, that didn't matter. He'd closed the door on the conversation and for tonight, this morning whatever it was, that's the way it would stay.

Even if the brush of fingers on his back both wrapped him in a passing comfort and stabbed him with a need for more. A few minutes later, Doc would even get a small almost inaudible "G'night" to echo his own.

True to his word, Raylan would stay until well after he hears Doc's breath even out to the shallow ones he'd fallen asleep to on his neck a few hours before, but after near an hour of listening to Doc sleep and chewing his own liver in the dark, Raylan slips out of bed, grabs his boots and pads silently towards the door.

Doc deserved a bit of quiet to rest in before the rest of the start of their day, but Raylan was far too wired by emotion. He was up for the day.