quietplacelogs | 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Must be too new. Perhaps as time goes on. They'll have the bird at least.]

Lavi shrugs on the jumpsuit he arrived in simply because it's the easiest thing for him right now. Then journeys to the nearby garage to get said box. He hesitates on putting a blanket in there to soften things and tosses a few rags in; the air holes he'll wait until he sees how big this bird is in person.]

Where do you think they came from? [Gently pushing the front door open behind Sora.]

[If anyone actually wants it, sure.

He has to cast sleep on it at least one more time and he stares off into the distance wondering if he should do the same to the others or deal with this one first. When the door opens, Sora turns to shrug at Lavi.]

No idea. They certainly aren't normal birds.

[Lavi quietly takes the lid off, placing the box on the ground before signing.]

So they haven't appeared before, even in the distance?

[Sora casts Zero Gravity, causing the bird to float and slides the box under the bird - waiting for the spell to end so it drifts to land in the box. Not daring to touch it just in case.]

Not that I've seen anywhere. I guess they could have come here on a yearly schedule or something but they're still gonna get us killed.

[Lavi puts the lid back on the box as quietly as he can. He's using BSL because he's still learning the other language.]

So then the natives might not know how to get rid of them either... We'll have to see what everyone decides to do with the birds. If we can't scare them off.

[After all the time in the Facility, texting comes easier to him than signing does right now. With the bird in the box, Sora lifts it and nods to the door behind Lavi. Waiting until they're inside so he can set it down and text again.]

I wonder why they look so weird. They obviously aren't normal birds that should be found on Earth, right?

[Lavi just wants to give his fingers a break with pressure, even if it's just tapping a screen it still makes his fingers stiff. This helps keep them limber and helps strengthen them?] Nothing I've seen before. Maybe something prehistoric?

[Once inside Lavi actually grabs the box and moves it into the middle of the house for now.]

You think we could leave the box in the basement for now with a slightly heavy object on top to keep it closed?

[He doesn't mind. Even if he doesn't understand BSL the 'berries translate it. Sora has other things he does to stretch his own stiff fingers.] Or mutated.
I haven't seen a lot of the other animals around here except the things I fish out of the river and those look normal.

[Sora watches as Lavi moves the box, not protesting at all.]

We'd have to poke holes in the box but it's better than leaving it up here. At least down there it has the dirt to muffle the sound.

Do they even have the technology to mutate things here? Then again, considering the Sound Eaters' descriptions I've heard....

I'll take the box down there if you want to bring a knife down? It might be safer to do it down there.

Maybe not the natives but who knows what's happening all over the world. The birds could have mutated somewhere else because people aren't around to keep an eye on things and just come here afterwards. Or maybe something about prolonged exposure to the red dust does something.

Yeah, I'll meet you downstairs.

[Lavi tilts his head as if he's thinking about it, because it does all seem probable. But if it's exposure to the red dust...well, it's slightly alarming. What if the Sound Eaters are just an end result of being exposed to the red dust for too long when you're a human...

A nod and Lavi picks the box back up, carrying it carefully down to the basement.]

INTRO LOG #3

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