quietplacelogs | INTRO LOG #3

Entry tags:

the dark tower: jake chambers

INTRO LOG #3

INTRO LOG #3
Put a Sock in It
Content Warnings: Disorientation, memory loss, confusion
Themes: Arrival, survival, exploration, horror

You wake, standing. A thick, muddy red dust coats your skin and clothes - it sticks to your tongue and blocks your vision. Inhale and it chokes you, exhale and your breath puffs out in front of your face in a transparent maroon cloud. It tastes of copper, tangy and harsh. Movement is difficult, every limb tingles and aches. Look to your left, your right. Evenly spaced in each direction stands another person indistinguishable in every way from the next. You're disoriented and lethargic, unable to grasp onto a single thought. A pinprick of light blooms ahead and grows steadily larger; a door has opened.

Hands grip your wrists, push at the small of your back and guide you out of the darkness into a room with four walls and a thin, sagging ceiling. The plaster is peeling, the air is musty, and the floor is slick. White plastic piping juts up from the center and curves into multiple spouts, clean water flowing in uneven streams. Those hands pull your clothes off and clear the dust from your body, redress you in handsewn jumpsuits. By the time they’re through, you will have begun to come back to yourself.

A finger is pressed to your lips. Kind eyes meet your own and a single word is whispered - hush.

Led out of the room in a line, you’re taken down a short hallway and into another, much larger room. There’s a woman waiting for you there, Constance, with a child hugging her leg - a cloth bag in her hands. She reaches in and pulls out a device, passes one to each of you. Once finished, she begins to move both hands in graceful gestures, a language. One of the people who helped you lifts their device and the screen lights up, tracks the woman’s hands. Letters appear on the screen and you understand the device’s purpose. She tells you what she knows and it’s not much.

This world is haunted. Noise attracts them, so it is not allowed. Communication is through body language, soundless writing, and the device. She tells you that your feet must be light and your mouth never used. There is a community outside these doors, where you can survive together, but only if you agree to one thing: complete and total silence. You'll have time to talk it over. You may ask one question and receive one answer. There are others like you in the room, those who'd come earlier. They're there to help.

Acceptance allows you to journey outside. The ground is marked in pathways of sand, lining the paths to each building and everywhere in-between. You notice that the locals hold their devices always, aloft and glance to it often. It will not vibrate or make a sound to signal a message. Notices appear. Rules. Guidelines. Feet on the sand and never anywhere else. To open a door you brush your fingers along the hinges - oiled and you may enter. If not, take the brush from the can sitting nearby and coat the metal with the dark liquid.

Now, you're to settle into your new home – with or without the help of those who have come before you.

In Freakish Flight
Content Warnings: Threat to safety, death, weird creatures
Themes: Plot, survival

This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,
As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the Glories swept the sky;
As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed, and the bottle of "hooch" was dry.

The new arrivals are here, like clockwork it seems. A strange occurrence that the natives haven't missed. They don't have answers but following support and encouragement from some of the older arrivals, they have been looking into it. If they notice anything odd, they post it to the bulletin board and they're working as hard as ever to help. Settling in is easier this time around, smoother, as everyone is more prepared than before. The first few days go well, one of the natives finds a patch of wild berries and makes fresh jam - serves it with breakfast until it runs out. There's a nice breeze that night, not too hot and not too cold. The stars twinkle and the moon is full, a pleasant atmosphere rolls through the community as everyone falls asleep.

Everyone wakes to the soft sounds of birds chirping. There's a light fog, windows misted over, and abruptly, it goes quiet. The only way to see outside is to open the door and those curious ~~brave~~ enough will find, covered in red dust, a handful of individually unique creatures scattered around the fountain at the center of the community. There's about fourteen of them - each one focused on the door of the main residences and two have scurried off towards the others, quiet now but watching. After the first door opens, they move, stopping only when they're right in front of each of the houses and then the sounds start again. Louder.

OOC: Removing the threat, these creatures, is possible in a few ways. They have a weakness for water, which slows them down and shuts them up. They can be killed, the same as any normal animal might. Or they can be captured, something tied around their bills to silence them. Unfortunately, only a few will survive being caught alive ( we randomized out of the twelve houses - 5, 1, 2, 12, and Private Housing (Sora) and the Permanent Apartments ) and can be kept for study. The players in each house can decide what they want to do with them or use the comment below if they want to hand it over. As a side note, the dead ones can be kept too.

Alone or Together
Content Warnings: Poisoning
Themes: Plot

Up until now everything around here has been, well, pleasant. Recently certain things have become unpleasant. Now, it seems to me that the first thing we have to do is to separate out the things that are pleasant from the things that are unpleasant.

The natives have been up front about those that came through the Reset Room before. Some left, some didn't survive, and a few now call themselves natives. The above message lights up everyone's devices ( username - lamar ) but all ways to respond are disabled. A follow up message comes from Constance, explaining that they don't know how the message has been sent due to the fact that Lamar has been dead for over a decade. That night at dinner, the set up in town hall, the natives are abuzz talking about the mysterious message. Food is passed out. Drinks are had.

Before the first person leaves the hall, a plume of red dust sprays out from an old vent near the floor boards and fills the room. Quickly, all color is leached from the world. Every person is now color blind, seeing everything in varying shades of black, white, and grey as they cough and choke, trying to clear the dust from their faces and mouths. Was this Lamar? Was this the person who rigged up the noise machine in Verdel Square? What did the message mean?

OOC: The effects will fade after twenty four hours. All arrivals, new and old, plus all natives will be effected. For each character, one person will still be in color. Players can decide who this is. A friend, lover, enemy, one of the natives.

OOC
From your mods:

Please be mindful of content - if something triggery comes up or if it goes up a rating to say, something sexy, mark your threads in the subject line. We're very flexible and allow any material; we just want our players to be respectful of each other. If you have questions, pp the mod account, use the faq or comment to the appropriate post below. Have fun!

NAVIGATION

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Put a Sock in It

Leo seems to be in some state of shock as things are explained to him. He'd just died rather painfully by his brother's hands, so he's rather disoriented. It reminds him of first being created, suddenly coming into existence thanks to humanity's selfish desire to sin. "Is this what happens when you die?" He murmurs to himself. "You just keep moving from one place to another?"

Once things are explained to him, Leo sees one giant problem staring him in the face. He has to play his song in order to feed off sinners. Starving isn't really an option unless he wants to take out half the populace in a hunger-fueled rage. They explain to him that some buildings are soundproofed, so he can play there. Finding sinners, now there's the rub. Most people aren't keen to die after facing what they'd done "Of course it would complicated."

Finally, he leaves, and he sees no good solution to the problems facing him. He'll survive though. Sunai are built as tough creatures, and if he has to skip a meal for a few days, he can do so until he figures things out. Now the first order of business is to find the place he's now supposed to call home. He's worked with the military long enough to know a base to work out of utmost importance no matter where one finds themselves.

In Freakish Flight

Leo doesn't sleep well as it is. He hears the sounds of his creation when he sleeps, the screams of terror and moans of pain as they died all around him. He can't even have the luxury here of having an iPod with songs to drown out the noise in his head. He's going to need to fix that very soon if he wants to get more than three hours each night.

The birds wake him up after it felt like he'd just dropped off, so the Sunai monster looks positively murderous as he stares at the little nuisance. He makes a shooing motion with his hands, but that doesn't seem to do anything, and he swears the bird looks like it's mocking him now. This being needs to die posthaste. Well, this house is supposedly soundproofed. Maybe it can be lured in and then killed? Leo goes off to find something that a bird might enjoy eating.

Alone or Together

Leo sits in the back of the Hall, pointedly apart from the rest of the populace. He's never been one much to pretend to be human and subconsciously tends to keep himself apart from those who are. He does listen in, though he sees no answers to this mystery.

When the dust coats him, it sends him into a hacking fit as he tries to clear it from his eyes. When he eventually does so, he's surprised to find the world in a lack of color, but not distressed. "This is new."

"I've never world hopped, but moving into other dimensions isn't unheard of." Sally hears her fellow newbie and decides to respond without thinking about it. Was he talking to himself? Doesn't matter. She figures herself an expert of death at this point, even if she's really not. Still, she's not your normal and typical ghost. She flashes a grin at him.

"There are places, if you're not stuck haunting the world. Limbo, Purgatory, whatever's behind your door. This feels more like an alternate reality. I don't know that it has anything to do with us being dead, though, but who the hell knows."

Leo looks up in surprise when he realizes that someone is talking to him. He hadn't really meant himself to be overheard, but he also doesn't really have a problem with us. "I always figured I'd end up somewhere after death. I just never knew where." Leo figured some higher power had created him, so he was bound to end up in some sort of afterlife. Whether it would be good or bad, he hadn't the faintest idea. He was good at being a monster, but not at being a person in general.

Wait, she said 'us' right there. Wait a minute. "Were you dead before you ended up here too?" Curious and curiouser.

The surprise look gets an even brighter grin, completely unapologetic. She's good at just slapping herself right in the middle of someone else's external monologue. "Silence, monsters that attack you, these jumpsuits? We could make a very good case for Hell."

If Hell is real.

Her shoulders lift in a casual shrug. "For a few years, yup."

Leo's lips quirk into a small smile of his own. "Always thought Hell would be a lot hotter." But then he already looks like a demon in his true form, so maybe that's where he came from originally. No one knew where monsters came from or where they went after they were destroyed.

"So you were, what, a ghost? I don't think we have those where I'm from." Nope, just monsters that tear you apart, suck your blood, or steal your soul. Verity was such a wonderful place, really, monsters here was just a nice reminder of home.

Her shoulders lift in a shrug. Maybe people just hate the heat and decided Hell was just going to be all flame and sweat. Who knows. "I'd say the emphasis would be more on the torturing bits, rather than us all getting our tans on."

Sally double snaps her fingers into guns, pointed straight at him. "Got it in one, congratulations. You're today's winner!" Right now, she's thankful they're still inside of this weird building with its weird sand so she can make noise. Better soak it up while she can. "Maybe you just never saw the ghosts."

He looks a bit wry. "In that case, maybe the place I came from was already part of Hell." Or had some crack in the different places that allowed monsters to come through. That would explain a lot, actually. Hmmmm...

Her enthusiasm is odd, at least to someone who doesn't have much in the way of amusement or humor in his mind. "Don't think so. I'm pretty sure souls go somewhere else when people die." He should know, he's eaten quite a few of them himself.

"Probably a lot of people wouldn't disagree with you on that front. Everyone thinks they already live in their own personal Hell." Everyone had their own monsters to deal with, metaphorical and actual, as she well knew. Who was to say what was Hell and what wasn't at this point.

Not every world can have the same rules, but she knows enough about her own world and experiences. "Can't say for sure, buddy, but you might not be wrong exactly. Just personal experience, there are plenty of places for ghosts to go and stay."

"Seems like I'm meeting quite a few people who were dead before they came here. Maybe we're in Purgatory." It's probably becoming apparent that Leo's mind is a little bit fixated with religion. It's something that was imprinted on him from the very beginning, since he was created from badly warped religion in the presence of a cult that decided the end times had come and so death was imminent.

"So if you were a ghost, do you have a body now?" He has no idea what the rules are for spirits that haven't passed on.

At that, Sally shrugs. It's a possibility that crossed her mind during the information portion of this crappy place, but she's not sure. She was able to create her own Purgatory when Donna came to collect her soul, and it was a pretty nice place. Spa treatment, getting waited on. She's fucked up, but she would never create this willingly, wouldn't drag other people with her. "Maybe it's just easier to bring in the dead or those who know death? I don't know, philosophy isn't my thing."

An easy way to prove she has a body is to touch someone, of course. So she'll move in closer and poke him with a finger. "Whole and breathing. Not sure what's up with that, but I'm certainly not complaining."

"Guess there won't be a lot of answers coming." The natives hadn't been able to explain much beyond the basics. It seemed like there was a lot of mysteries in the way things worked around here. Well, perhaps he'd be able to pick things up as he went along.

He seems to react a little funny when Sally touches him, a weird twitch running through him. It's nothing personal, but when he can drain a person's soul with only a touch, he tends not to like too much physical contact.

Everyone is shocked and alarmed by the billowing red dust, Carpet included. Everyone is not, however, blinded or sent into a coughing fit by it, because not everyone in the room has eyes or lungs. Carpet is able to make do with a few brisk shakes, trying to prevent as much of the stuff as possible from settling on him and getting into his weave; his movements are definitely more sluggish than they otherwise might be, but he's fairly sure he's better off than nearly everyone else here.

It's hard to say how much it'll actually help, given how soft his tassels are--but Carpet makes an effort to pat Leo's back and help him cough the dust out. He'll be okay, right? This won't really hurt everyone, will it?

Leo's eyes are blinded as he feels something rather soft patting him on the back. He looks around for the person after the dust settles and he finds himself staring at the world in black-and-white. He instead finds himself face to face (well, as much as the carpet can be said to have a face) with what appears to be a living carpet. What the...

Leo's seen a lot in the eight or nine years he's alive. But this is something else. "The rugs are alive around here?" Now he's looking around at the other furniture as if it too might start moving around on their own.

It must be a shame to only see him in black and white, huh? Given how elaborate the pattern is, Carpet can't help but be colorful. Once Leo seems to have recovered though, Carpet drifts back to about arm's length, to at least try to give back his personal space. It doesn't look like any of the rest of the furniture is about to start moving around on its own.....

Carpet's tassels have split themselves into 'fingers' though, and he's signing the way the locals are, trusting Leo's device to scan and translate the gestures. (The attempted humor, though, will probably have to stand on its own merits.) No, I'm just imported. Are you okay?

After glancing down at his device, Carpet gets to witness something very rare. Leo bursts into laughter, just for a moment, but it sounds almost hysterical. Sorry, he's reached his limit today on weird stuff. "The rug is talking. There's a talking rug here and there are monsters attracted to sound and a dust that turns the world black and white. What did I wander into, a fairy tale?"

He's aware enough to realize he probably could be included in that category being a monster himself. Really, he's just waiting for an evil witch or a handsome prince to pop out at any moment.

Carpet's corners curl in, like someone startled or taken aback pulling their hands back to their chest. Why is Leo laughing like that? That doesn't sound like normal, happy laughter..... Did he say or do something wrong? Is he upset?

.....Maybe he's just stressed out. Anyone would be stressed if they're a newcomer, and he doesn't remember even passingly seeing the man's face around here before. His signing is a little more hesitant this time, before he approaches to offer what he hopes is an encouraging nuzzle, not unlike a cat rubbing against someone's ankles.

If this is a fairy tale, then even if it's hard now, we'll all live happily ever after for sure!

That's the way it works in fairy tales, right? Everyone who's goodhearted has their dreams come true, and monsters and wicked people get what they deserve? Leo doesn't look like a monster to him--just a man having a hard time accepting and adjusting to a very strange trial that's been thrust onto him without his consent.

It's alright, Carpet, he's not losing his mind just quite yet. He really is just stressed out and some of it likely coming from the fact he's getting hungry. He hasn't yet entered the stages that lead up to going dark yet, so he knows he's not manic. Not yet, at least.

Leo reaches over and pats Carpet tentatively on his edge, sort of where he supposes his head might be if he had one. "You're very optimistic for a rug." Leo's not sure he's due for a happy ending. Monsters usually get slayed by heroes at the end of the fairy tale.

Then he looks down again at the carpet currently in shades of grey. "Wait, do you have a name?" He has no idea what sort of social conventions animate objects that are normally inanimate might have.

Carpet nuzzles up into the patting readily enough; whatever social conventions mysteriously animate objects might have, they clearly don't involve quite the same rules about touching and personal space that humanity's does. Even if he wasn't used to it, he probably wouldn't mind, as long as it was comforting--after all, humans really seem to like touching him for some reason. Maybe they like how soft he is? ~~He was named after that fact, after all.....~~

It's all over if you give up. But if you keep believing and trying your best, anything's possible! My name is Fuwa-chan, what's yours? He takes the time to slowly finger spell the name out, just to make sure Leo's device can catch it properly; it isn't as if they're programmed to understand the shorthand signs people choose for their names, after all.

Leo's never liked animals. Maybe it's because of there's not a lot of them in the city anymore. The Corsai had eaten pretty much all of them. But he absentmindedly keeps petting Carpet along the edges of his fibrous body. He's back to his usual calm state now. Flying rugs that can talk. He can deal with this. Yes. He'll be fine.

"Fuwa-chan?" He repeats just to make sure he's got the name down. "My name is Leo Flynn. Nice to meet you." He actually means that, for monsters can't ever lie about anything, at least not intentionally.

Flying rugs that can talk are probably easier to deal with than Sound Eaters, at least? Carpet settles in contentedly for the moment, nodding in confirmation. People are starting to calm down, now that the dust is settling, though fearful speculation and agitated chattering is still breaking out all around the room; Carpet hopes everyone at the table is done eating. Ingesting a lot of this stuff is..... probably pretty dangerous, isn't it? Given what happens even when it just coats you or you breathe it in.....

There was chaos in the streets when it blew in from that little island, after all. He's not even sure what was happening there, but it couldn't have been anything good. People had even been collapsing by the time they reached the place, hadn't they?

It's nice to meet you too! We probably shouldn't stay in here too much longer, it's not healthy to breathe in all this dust.

"Right." As they walk outside, he pulls out his device. He wonders how Carpet can see anything considering he doesn't seem to have any eyes, but then, Corsai managed to see just fine, and they were basically just living shadows with teeth and claws.

Leo continues their conversation once they get outside. He's still marveling at the black and white look of everything. It's kind of pretty now that he's getting used to it. Do things like this happen often here?

He's more substantial than a shadow, if nothing else. Still, he can clearly see just fine, even reading the device while he flies. If Leo's got a good memory for directions, he'll probably realize pretty quickly that Carpet is leading him towards the building he arrived in--or more importantly, where the natives washed him clean of the dust of arrival.

Carpet signs with his back tassels as he goes; clearly, concepts like front and back don't mean much to him. Not really. People got pretty scared when there was a lot of dust blowing in from outside of town once. They were getting sick trying to investigate where it was coming from, too.

Leo feels the path they're taking is familiar, but he's not quite sure preciselt where they're heading. Well, Carpet seems to know, so that's good enough for him. He seems quite smart for someone made mostly out of fibers.

So the dust produces different effects? That's odd. He's never heard of anything like that happening before. But the rules for how things operate here are a lot different then at home. He's still getting his bearings as to what they all are.

Sort of? It's never made me see in black and white before. The rest is the same, though. The more dust gets on you, and the longer it's there, the worse you feel. Some people were walking a long way in the middle of big clouds of it, so it got so bad they were really sick.

Which is exactly the reason Carpet is leading them this way; he doesn't want his new friend to get sick! Even Carpet is feeling a little sluggish from the dusting; he'll be glad to wash off too. Soon enough, the building is coming into view in the distance. Look familiar, Leo?

I probably won't have to worry about that. He says probably because who knows what could happen in this strange place? I don't get sick.

His core temperature naturally runs quite a bit higher than a normal human being's. When he's fed recently, it hovers just a little bit above average, 100 to 102 degrees. But if he starts to starve, he can easily heat up past the temperature of a burning stove, hot enough that anyone who touches him will burn their hands just touching him.

He notices that they've returned to the building where he initially was. He turns towards Carpet. What are we doing here?

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gimmesometassel - 2018-04-25 05:28 (UTC) - Expand

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INTRO LOG #3

Leo Flynn | Monsters of Verity | Newbie

sock it up!

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alone or together

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