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]

Maybe one day things will stop replenishing at the General Store. It is one of many worries that kick around in Doc's mind. Like a fog that goes where it pleases, it may decide one day that it has given them enough. He has been stockpiling judiciously, bringing extra cans back at the end of each day he is able to venture out later at night when everyone else has had the chance to raid the store and the Grey Gull, but with 5 people in the house it won't last them forever.

"I slept so much in the two days we were away I thought you might be lying awake at night feeling quietly envious and resentful about it," he jokes.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled down into the teacups.

"I never begrudge anyone else their sleep," he said. "I'm not getting it whether you get it or not. Someone should." He looked at Doc. "You'll be sharper if something happens if you're getting your sleep in. I... feel bad about disturbing it. But I appreciate... that you don't want me to."

[thering]

"It feels selfish," he says quietly. It would be a waste to have everyone deprive themselves of sleep on account of some false sense of solidarity but Malcolm brings the privilege of it to light and makes him aware of one of many things he takes for granted.

"I have been called selfish many times. Usually in the heat of the moment, but that makes it no less true." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Doc 'well frankly I don't give a shit' Holliday takes these things to heart even if he tries to make it look like he's invulnerable to every cutting remark cast his way.

"Before my time is through I... should like to be a better man." He doesn't need the validation - he would just... know. And he knows he's not there yet.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watches him quietly while he talks, considering that.

"Why have you... not chosen to be in the past? And what makes you choose that now?"

[thering]

"I didn't know. I was- just some asshole who was really good with a six shooter. But I thought I would die sicker and quicker than my mother did, get thrown in a ditch somewhere, alone and forgotten. Didn't leave anyone behind. Didn't matter if I wasn't a good man."

He's raised his discomfort with his legacy before, more with Raylan than with Malcolm.

"I thought I was dealt a shitty hand, and I was entitled to be a little selfish. Things are different now."

[abrightboy]

"So you started looking for redemption before you came here," he realized. "...Was it when you got out of the well?"

[thering]

He's never questioned himself that deeply so he doesn't immediately know the answer to that. He liked it at first, truth be told. Liked having a reputation that endured past his lifetime, being known as what they would call these days 'a badass'. But while it's still a nice sentiment, he thinks he can be both 'a badass' and a half-decent man. They are not mutually exclusive options.

"All I wanted to do when I got out was to kill the witch. Once she was taken care of I figured. Had some time on my hands now to do other things."

[abrightboy]

"That makes sense," Malcolm observed. "Especially since most people don't get to see how their legacy plays out on Wikipedia," he acknowledged.

[thering]

"Ugh. Don't look me up." Doc says with a chuckle, moving to grab both their teas and bringing it in front of them. Is he actually shy about it? He perhaps doesn't care, if it was anyone else telling him what they think of him, or the kind of man he ought to be. He would take that with a grain of salt. But he cares what Raylan and Malcolm think about him.

"You don't think it's... terrible? Being some kind of... famous killer." Not that that's the only thing he is famous for, but. It doesn't boil down to much else. "I imagine you have some strong feelings about that." And not entirely pleasant ones.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm couldn't help a laugh at that, at the phrasing that put Doc under the same category as a Martin Whitly.

"I do," he conceded. "But... what you did wasn't... murder. You killed out of necessity, to protect yourself or others. The world you did it in was a relentlessly violent place. My mentor, Gil, has killed people in the line of duty. He's a police officer. You're more like him. You're not... My father is a famous murderer. He killed people for fun, Doc. I can't picture you killing a man for kicks."

[thering]

Oh he could picture himself getting great pleasure out of killing Negan, but Doc's just going to be polite about it and forgo mentioning that. From where he's standing it all sounds like semantics to him. All different ways of dressing up blood on your hands but blood is blood. It stains just the same.

"I just hope I can live up to your expectations," he muses quietly before taking a sip of tea. Malcolm is right, it doesn't really suit him, but he's content with the hot drink nonetheless.

[abrightboy]

"You're the one that set my expectations, not Wikipedia. You've set them with the way you've treated me and others here so far. So I guess it's a pretty high bar, but you've been clearing it consistently," Malcolm answers simply, taking a sip of his tea as well.

[thering]

Wikipedia would have likely set a very different type of expectation. Which is not to say that Doc would have been unable to meet those either. Just that he appreciates that Malcolm isn't going by too many preconceived notions in forming an opinion of him.

"I would make a gentleman out of Raylan yet before my time is up. I do fully intend on being-... mostly a good influence."

[abrightboy]

"Well, you've kept my secret about him, so I can't complain," Malcolm told him, smiling down into his mug before taking a sip. "I think I've got that. Pretty. Under control now," he said with no confidence at all.

[thering]

"Hmh." Yeah, it's not much of a secret to Doc even if he might not have said anything about it unless asked directly, but he won't point that out, opting to go gently on Malcolm.

"Has any progress been made on that front, if you don't mind my asking? It's none of my business but if I have to give 'im a nudge or punch his face," Doc offers with a shrug.

[abrightboy]

He fidgeted with the handle of his cup.

"Depends what you mean by progress. He still doesn't know, which was my goal. But. It hasn't gotten... less. My own feelings. I kind of thought they'd... peter out."

[thering]

"I don't think it works that way," Doc suggests. "Usually you have to do something with them. Preferably before it is too late. But- in your own time." Hurrying these sorts of things tend to be almost as uncomfortable as not saying anything at all. At least, that has been his experience.

"He's probably not too busy today if you want to spend some time with him." There are no days in Mathias and nothing urgent requiring attention that Doc would consider as truly worth calling themselves busy over.

[abrightboy]

"...I always want to spend time with him," Malcolm admitted. "I'll... see what he's up to when he comes back."

He considered Doc for a moment.

"What if he's just not interested though? It's still a big risk for me. It's still a risk to... my place here."

[thering]

"A risk to your place here?" Doc repeats back. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow." Doc is a risk to Negan's place here, in that he would not be so dishonourable as to kill him in his sleep but he isn't against strangling him over breakfast. Malcolm faces no such threat from anyone.

"He would drink a few glasses to mull over it, and think of a way to let you down gently, because you deserve to be told where he stands with you. Whether your feelings are requited is a separate matter from helping you settle down at night, which is a separate matter yet again from this house. This is your-... This is our house. He is free to leave if he pleases. But your 'place here' is solely at your discretion. And wherever he might go during the day, whatever he feels, whomever he is with, he will still come back to you every night. This is the promise we made to you."

[abrightboy]

They took it so seriously, that promise. It still felt risky to pursue more if he didn’t know he could have it.

“If he’s... with someone else, he should probably spend his nights with them,” he said with a shudder of a laugh.

He sobered.

“I really appreciate the... stability. I don’t know that I could handle things here and... and inside myself without it.”

There’s a pause and he looks at Doc like he’s chewing over whether to ask or not.

He decides to ask.

“Do you think he could... requite them?”

[thering]

"No one else has come up in conversation." Doc would not go into the details of their conversations - what happens on the porch or wherever they are using instead of the porch stays on the porch - but he can assure Malcolm of at least that.

The question posed is not one with an easy or direct answer, and though it is not his poison of choice he is thankful to have chamomile tea steaming away between his hands to buy him some time.

"Have you ever been in a relationship with an angry man, Malcolm? Or woman."

[abrightboy]

"I've never been in a relationship that lasted more than five weeks," he confessed. "Many of them were angry by the time they left."

That wasn't exactly what Doc was asking and he tilted his head in concession.

"Only once," he said.

[thering]

That gets a small laugh out of Doc. Sorry Malcolm. He's not laughing at you, promise.

"How was it? For you. Tell me as much or as little as you like about it."

[abrightboy]

"At first it went well. We were both profilers. We had a lot to talk about. But I... trusted her too easily. I invited her to my apartment. She found out about my medication and then she found out about my father and then she told everyone at work and effectively ended my career with the FBI," Malcolm told him evenly.

[thering]

"What made you think she was angry? And why on Earth did she do that?" Doc would have lived his whole life on medication if there was any at the time. He could have worked right through his self-medicating if it wasn't for the coughing fits. He doesn't understand how it could be or why it is a problem.