quietplacelogs | MOD LOG #3

Entry tags:

MOD LOG #3

MOD LOG #3

Arriving in style
Content Warnings: Fighting, death, violence
Themes: Survival, plot

It's early in the day when it happens. The red dust that seems to be everywhere sweeps through the city streets, mixing with the steady patter of rain and making it hard to see and breathe. All red and leaving the taste of copper if inhaled, what could have been an easy day without any trouble quickly becomes anything but. While those in the community are heading for cover or finding ways to continue on through it, the new arrivals begin waking up in different cities all over the world. There won't be anyone to greet them, and leaving the room through the door is their choice - after doing so, they'll immediately step out into the city they were assigned. The streets are empty, houses abandoned, everything crumbling and in ruins. There will be signs noting their location, which they'll catch a glimpse of before a sharp push forward causes darkness to engulf them.

Waking up for the second time, in Reims but not in the Reset Room, they'll come to inside the red dust as it whips through the streets of the community. They won't be alone for long. Another person will be waking up beside them, and after a few moments of disorientation, try to attack. They might have weapons or use their hands, and they will not stop until they've taken a fatal blow. Their blood is dust, and they, along with their weapons, disintegrate after they've died. Can you stop them on your own? Will someone come to your aid?

The Sight of Lightning
Content Warnings: Poison, sex
Themes: Survival, plot

The day after the storm, the same red dust will find its way through Reims and come into contact with every person. Since the dust is everywhere, some might not notice that it's floating through the community and know that something is off. The effects don't begin until night fall, where everyone will feel the desire to seek out companionship of many different kinds. Though it is not always the case, the people that saw each other in color will "want" to be with that person more strongly than they might already, and will be more likely to confess or do something about it. Some might feel an intense need to be around another person, though not necessarily sexually - almost as if they need that person around them to be happy or content. For some, it might be a desire that can only be fulfilled by more than one person.

The effects wear off the next time the person gets wet. This can be a splash of water across the face or fully submerged. Or even drinking something.

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! The OOC Plotting Post.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's Majima. And what should I call you?

[ He'd gotten used to simply giving his family name; it was just kinda weird having people call him by his given name, even if logically it made sense for them to do so. Maybe everyone thought he was like Madonna or something at this point.

Either way, he tucked the end of the bandage under a few other layers of wrapping, using a small metal fastener to secure it in place. ]

There ya go. What d'you mean by nightmares, exactly? Like this is all a dream?

Sir Majima, then. I am Lady Maria. [she nods in recognition, if trying to be still as to not shake loose the bandages. The less she moved, the better to clot the wound and begin the healing. His name sounded like one from the eastern kingdoms, like the blade she wielded.]

I have passed on from waking world to nightmare... and from there to this place. [Maria has felt the embrace of death twice over, first in what she considered life and second fold within the Hunter's Nightmare... but this place felt like a combination of the two. Her heart beats, her skin feels, and her breathe is steady... no longer a corpse guarding well buried secrets.]

There was another between, a city of towering glass ruins, but that was only a glimpse. What of your journey to such a place?

Me? I was in Tokyo. Family business, I guess ya could say.

[ Just a little yakuza humor, there. Those Dojima goons hadn't know what hit them -- literally, for some of the younger soldiers, who wouldn't have heard of Shimano's pet project before he'd been quietly deep-sixed. ]

Last thing I remember, I was in an office building, chattin' with another guy. Then I woke up in the red room here, with some other unlucky... future friends.

[ Probably not the f-words he was originally intending. But in any case, Majima deemed the patch job good enough to hold Maria for now; he returned to the kit and began to pack it away. ]

What d'you mean by 'glass ruins'? You think that was part of that nightmare ya mentioned?

[she had been expecting a more dramatic description, believing this place a sort of after life, but maybe it wasn't the case. It's a piece to a puzzle she doesn't wish completed, anyhow, no reason to dig. Maria has had her fill of knowing the bigger picture.]

Curious circumstances, indeed... but there is no knowing. Perhaps a city of the Old Ones, perhaps a trick of my disoriented mind. I care not for further mysteries. [Maria is tired, but aware of the curse upon her. She may never find rest, she knows this, but the brief respite of the bar doesn't escape her gratitude]

Your kindness is to be cherished, Sir Majima. [despite the sentimentality of such words, she sounds matter of fact in them, blunt even.]

Well. You're very welcome.

[ What nice manners Maria had, and that wasn't sarcasm. Sort of reminded Majima of his time back at the Grand, though he'd set that persona neatly aside for the most part. ]

So, you feel like an actual drink this time? I've got a few snacks down here, too... but mostly just the fruit I use for garnishes.

Didn't figure on this storm comin' out of nowhere.

Food and drink... [Majima will have a difficult time understanding what the tone she uses is. It's nearly wonder. Her mind burns with the remembrance, hunger and thirst had been lost to her and the mere mention bring her a feeling of humanity she'd not felt in some time. The ache of desire for something to chew on, to swallow, is more intense than the open wound in her back. Her voice becomes stiff with poorly contained want.]

Yes. If you would please. [Maria is the picture of politeness when it came to good manners, raised noble and refusing to lose her sense of propriety. Even when she joined the Hunters, was no longer welcome at Cainhurst Court, she acted the lady. It was a part of her, a piece she held close, clung to for a sense of identity. Something she felt separated from in the nightmare. Something she wanted back, now.]

[ Majima took out a small bowl of fruit, complete with peach, pear, and orange, and set it out on the counter. ]

I guess I oughta be responsible and just offer ya some water, since you lost some blood back there. But Chardonnay's pretty good with peaches. Pears, too.

[ And hey, #yolo. Besides, Maria sounded frankly ravenous. ]

[Maria simply nods, not about to spit at the hospitality being granted, anything would be savory after what she had been through. She eyes down the food when it's put in front of her like it's water in the desert, but the self control she exhibits should be admirable to a fault. She reaches for her gloves and peels them off with care, one finger at time. She sets them on her lap. She smooths them out. Composure as she pulls over the bowl and plucks a peach slice out with her porcelain white hands.

The moment the food touches passes her lips, a wave of desperation hits her and that composure is gone. Politeness isn't a thought when your body remember's it's starving. Both hands are in the bowl and she's shoveling the food into her mouth like a bear.]

[ Majima kept the surprise from his expression, but only just barely, and only then because it would have been rude to make some comment about someone who was clearly ravenous.

Silently, he placed a glass of water and half of this week's hearth muffin by the bowl of fruit. From there, he'd devote himself to rearranging some bottles until Maria had enough to slow down a bit. ]

Hope those dust storms ain't going to be a new pattern.

[Maria empties the bowl and only takes a short break for breathe and water before the muffin is devoured, too. She doesn't have the luxury of dignity, not right now. She'd gone hungry many times during the Hunt's, the workshop wasn't spoiled with wealth like the palace of Cainhurst, but in way she liked the destitution far more than she did excess. The food nearly makes her sick, bubbling her stomach as finished, holding down the desire he body had to hack it all back up again in as much a hurry as she put it down. Ultimately, her constitution and will win out, reaching shakily to polish off her water.

Wiping her face with her palm and fingers, she pulls herself together for conversation. A pattern meant time enough to notice one. Maria swallows heavily before speaking, voice a bit strained.]

Not the usual, is it?

Nope. The dust storms ain't exactly new, but from what I been hearing, this time they might've interfered with the new arrivals coming in.

[ He gestured to Maria. ]

New people've started coming in, 'bout once a month. I was one of them, only I showed up two cycles ago.

[Maria didn't get the whole spiel from the locals or about the sound eaters, not yet. Evidence by her clothes and the fact they allowed her an old and certainly very noisy firearm. She's not really looking for an explanation of this whole circumstance, she only wants to know so much, but it would be rude to shut down the conversation.]

Come and go, do they? Are there hunts every night? [she hadn't seen a moon out, that was when the Hunts as she knew them occurred. When the frenzy of the beast blood was at it's peak and the monsters began to roam the streets. When she would venture out with her fellows to slaughter the dangerous and deranged.]

Uh... not exactly. This's the first time I've ever seen armed whackjobs come out and start attacking people.

It's actually pretty quiet most of the time.

[ ha. ha ha. ]

It's the Sound Eaters ya gotta worry about, 'cause you never know when one of those fuckers is around the corner.

There is some peace, then. [Quiet meant as much, at least to Maria, an it wasn't something she'd known in the Nightmare or on the Hunts. Her life had been noisy, full of wails and screams and roars, but the death after was worse. Everything was elevated there, louder, more persistent. The wailing of failed experiments don't cease when you're cursed to hear them always, always, never stopping.]

Sound Eaters, you say... are a manner of beast? Or something less knowable?

Some of 'em look more or less human, least on the outside. The young ones. Past that, though, you'd be hard-pressed to call 'em that.

They're the reason we normally can't make a lotta noise around here. Hunt ya down -- anything that's too loud, really -- and then ya wake up in the Reset Room with varying degrees of not knowin' what the hell happened.

A passed through two indistinct rooms, one lead to the glass city and the second to the storm outside... [she remembers the sign New York City, but won't say it, doesn't care to expand upon the experience. Shaking her head, she straightens in the seat and takes her gloves back into her hands. She preferred them on, sliding fingers back into the snug leather.]

Is that all? A spot in the memory and you are awake again?

I ain't died yet myself, so I can't say for certain. But that's what people who've gotten wrecked by one of those things tell ya.

[ He folded a small sheaf of leaves into one of the drawers. ]

Don't know if it's somethin' about the Sound Eaters themselves, or the Reset Room.

Are you afraid to meet such a fate, Sir Majima?

What, of dyin'? Nah.

[ The answer was almost lackadaisical; it was only when Majima took one of the bar stools to sit down and set his elbows up on the counter that his sigh suggested it wasn't, quite. ]

Ain't been afraid of that for a while now. Not everyday someone drops that as a casual conversation starter, though. So why do ya ask?

I no longer wish to ask questions, for we are but ants, Sir Majima. [how's that for a casual conversation? Maria speaks with such matter of fact authority that it's clear her mind is long made up on what she says. Whether it be a belief or a conviction, she is certain of it.]

Our pain, our joy, our struggles... they matter not to cosmic machinations, too large to comprehend. [she shrugs back on her coat and reaches for her hat, fitting it on her head with care. With a turn, Mari lifts from her chair and straightens her clothing.]

Hold onto your fear, if you are comforted by it. If it gives meaning when there otherwise is none.

[ If this was film noir, this would be the part where the mysterious woman who blew into the office left. Either way, it looked like the mysterious woman was about to leave.

So Majima stood. ]

Don't really know how. But I figure I can find my own meaning. Headin' back out there?

The hunt goes on and I shall rejoin it. [drive, duty, a sense of purpose.... Maria knows them to be ultimately pointless endeavors, but will continue to indulge. When faced with the knowledge she has, it is better to shrink back, take comfort in what you can.]

You have my uttermost gratitude, it shan't be forgotten. [he tips her hat one more time before taking her leave, her steps even and steadier than when she entered]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MOD LOG #3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject