INTRO LOG #4

[bequiet]

INTRO LOG #4
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.

Revery Alone
Content Warnings: Misleading wordplay, rude mods
Themes: Survival, plot

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, if bees are few.

As the community continues to expand, beyond what any of the natives were prepared for or could have expected, there's been a noticeable strain on resources. The stores of food that the natives had worked to stockpile in the green house are dwindling faster than all the hands chipping in can replenish. Rationing has become even more strict and group meals at the town hall have gone down to dinner once a week until the shortage is taken care of. The natives, though they mean well, are nervous people who tend to react poorly when confronted with issues that are further than the scope of what they can reasonably handle.

Fortunately, this issue isn't one of those times. The natives rally together to get all members of the community to fish on the rainy day. Some will be asked to take the fish from the river to the greenhouse, others will prep the fish, and some will be tasked with preparing the fish to be dried out. It's all hands on deck for this one - no other shifts or jobs will have to be completed and at the end of the day, there'll be a fish fry in the town hall for everyone. Rustic potatoes, a few loaves of baked bread, but mostly just a lot of fish.

Invictus
Content Warnings: Creepy creatures
Themes: Horror, plot

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Not long after the first wave arrivals came through the Reset Room, the natives took everyone to see the Sound Eaters.. Smaller than the other young, a 'child' had climbed up and out of its shell, and wasn't the same as the others. Human in form, it had dark hair and androgynous features. No eyes. No mouth. Through its behavior, those watching this birth could see that it was in command.

Over the last few months this new creature hasn't been seen. Not around the tower by those who watch the Sound Eater nest or otherwise. But then the rain stops, the scent of freshly baked fish lingering in the air and it comes. Sitting on the edge of the fountain at the center of the community, its head moves to and fro as if listening. It doesn't attack. It doesn't speak or approach anyone. If anyone gets too close the red dust swirls up and clouds vision, clogs the throat, and pushes until the person is backed away.

This will continue until, no matter how many people crowd into the center of the community to watch, midday where the dust will swirl up and the creature will go.

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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