INTRO LOG #1

[bequiet]

INTRO LOG #1
Muzzle and Mute
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, a child hugging her leg, and 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.

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.

The Man in the Hat
Content Warnings: Heavy lifting, following the rules, alcoholism
Themes: Moving in, survival, exploration, horror

Once you’ve claimed a room for yourself, it’s time to acclimate to the community. Natives will ask what you need and take you along the sandpaths to different areas in the city to gather supplies - furniture and the like. Heavier items will require assistance and will take longer. Houses are mostly empty so if you and your housemates need something, you’ll have to carry it and put it inside the home. Do not make any noise or the natives will refuse to help you. Getting to know your housemates is key to a smooth transition. They are going through what you are right now; take the time to get to know them. Make house rules.

As the first day gives way to night, the natives can be seen moving at a faster pace outside. They’re hurried, though not frightened. Some even smile at you. When the sun sets behind the ruins of what was once picturesque Reims, your device will signal that it’s time to meet at the center of the community. There, natives will stop each person and give them a small gift - a trinket, a token to show that they are trying their best to make all the new arrivals feel at home. These are all items from the character’s home or from another character's home (they will not be anything that belongs to anyone else). Small, soundless and either something taken during the application process or something brand new. They will have no powers to speak of and are meant to be a momento. If asked, the natives found them the same way they found each of you.

Then the party starts. Sort of. A soundless, stitled kind of celebration. Fun is meant to be had, but it’s not an overly joyous occasion. The natives simply don’t know how to cut loose. There will be extra food in the form of one and two; Phillipa even brought some of her homemade bread. If you stumble across a man wearing a hat, the only man in town who does, and agree to go with him when he offers to show you his house - he’ll gift you with a jar of hooch; it’ll burn on the way down.

Sound Eaters
Content Warnings: Threat, danger
Themes: Survival, exploration, horror, game plot

It’s the second day of your stay, and the natives call for an emergency meeting at the Town Hall. Everyone is paired off (see below) and are asked to walk the perimeter looking for anything out of place and patching any areas that might have been affected by weather. Once finished, the same is done on the inside, and when the community leader is satisfied, the main hall is opened up so that everyone can congregate. Characters, during this time only, are allowed to make sound. This is so that the natives can explain why silence is so necessary...

The Sound Eaters.

In an effort not to frighten everyone, the natives won’t go into the history just yet, but they will warn that when someone makes a sound, it attracts them. They don’t know what they look like because they are so fast. If you’re too loud, then in the blink of an eye, you’ll go through a room reset. This is because either the natives ‘silenced’ you or the Sound Eaters have. They will explain that the room came at the same time the Sound Eaters did and that it doesn’t work for the natives. Sometimes, it doesn’t work on new arrivals. Death, for those born in this world, is permanent. If you attract them, you’ll get someone killed. Hence the need for no noise. During the meeting, the natives will tell each character of their own experiences. Their losses. The families they have left and how they’d do anything to keep them alive. They don’t know if you’ll be reset, but is that a risk you’re willing to take? The meeting will last a few hours and will end on a somber, ominous note - at the end of the month, they are taking everyone to meet them.

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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Comments

[steal]

Not everything where I come from is advanced. I don't even know what cell phones or wireless internet are.

[At least he has her intrigued by talking about things that interest her. The food is set aside to be forgotten as she grins up at him, eager for him to explain.]

[kiljoy]

[Really? He's surprised. If she lives in a world of spaceships, how can they not know about cell phones? But maybe they have an advanced version of that technology too, some other way of communicating across galaxies, and they call it something different. Either that or she's crazy. But she's paying him attention now and she has a pretty smile so he'll indulge her.]

This is a cell phone. [He points at the device.] It's more advanced than the ones I'm used to, but basically the same thing. The internet is a network that lots of devices like this one can access to find information. Or messages, videos, whatever people want to post really. This thing doesn't have it, but it has some kind of network. Looks like you can post messages to everyone here.

[He hopes that makes sense. And he made it a family-friendly explanation too, give him a prize or something.]

[steal]

These devices are similar to datapads where I'm from. They can connect to people planets away, but some are just used to store information.

[Since he's done a good job explaining things to her, she offers him a smile of gratitude. She even steps in a little closer, so she can take a look at his device and see if it's the same as her own.]

I'm not sure I like the idea of all my communicating being done using this ridiculous thing. Everything is so easily tracked that way.

[kiljoy]

[Right, so she does have something similar but with a different name. He thought so. Can't go haring across space without being able to communicate remotely. Kilgrave nods, not objecting at all to her stepping in closer.]

Well, that depends what you have to say. With everyone thrown together like this, I think we're just trying to get to know each other.

[He offers a reassuring smile. She doesn't have any dark secrets to hide, does she?]

[steal]

[Oh, if only he knew.]

There are better ways to get to know someone.

[The urge to whisper is strong, but she resists for now. Instead, she glances past him, to look toward the building that contains the room they had woken up in. She motions for him to come with her with a nod of her head, trying to slip away from the crowd.

Follow me, she mouths the words, expecting him to follow.]

[kiljoy]

[...Is she coming on to him? Kilgrave reads that message and then looks up at her with raised eyebrows. All right. He's intrigued enough to follow her, leaving the crowd of people behind, but still wary enough to check that she's not leading them anywhere dangerous. He reaches for her arm, showing her his question:]

Where are we going?

[steal]

[Wait, why is he touching her? She jerks her arm out of his touch and narrows her eyes. He likely didn't mean any harm by that, same as Finn never does. The only difference is she knows and trusts Finn. This guy, she's still getting to know.

She's not about to get back out her own device now that it's tucked away, so she takes great care to make her answer as clear as possible as she silently "says" the words:

The Room.

That's assuming they can even get inside, of course.]

[kiljoy]

[He's getting her attention and it works, even if he's nonplussed by her reaction. Kilgrave stares at her and mouths back: Why?

They've all seen it. They've all been there. He was there for longer than some, as a matter of fact, arguing with the natives.]

[steal]

[Aw, something they have in common. Rey was delayed at first thanks to her arguing for hours with the natives. But she's really hoping they're not lurking there right now, because she's learned something interesting tonight.

Her eyebrows arch as she glances toward his device, as if asking for permission to use it. If he allows her to, she'll get out a response and hand it back over to him. If not, she'll have to pull out her own and do it.]

It's one of the few places we can actually talk.

[kiljoy]

[True. He lets her use it and then shrugs, nodding. It could be a good opportunity to test out his powers. God knows they didn't work on the natives.

So he'll keep walking with her all the way back to the reset room. Once there, he leans against the wall and lets out an audible sigh.]

I spent far too long in here. Didn't believe the residents about whatever it is that's lurking outside.

[He looks at her. What does she think of this whole business anyway?]

[steal]

[Look at Rey, inviting potential trouble upon herself by bringing him somewhere he can openly speak.

His words earn an arched eyebrow, but she wears a thoughtful look on her face. Where he leans back against a wall, she's tense, and looks about ready to pace around the room to get out some of her energy.]

They're afraid. They've been made to believe these things. But we can't be expected to stay here.

[kiljoy]

I'd like to go home too.

[Run, escape, whatever it is they have to do to leave this place. It's been a day and it already sucks. He watches Rey, sees how restless she is already.]

C'mere.

[A small test. He might as well try.]

[steal]

Hm?

[She moves forward, and she finds herself wanting to move in closer to him. So within a second or so she's standing right before him, far closer than she generally stands to other people she doesn't know. She doesn't think about that, however. She just gives him a questioning look.]

What is it?

[Clearly, he must have something to tell her.]

[kiljoy]

[He smiles, leaning in a little more.] Tell me a secret.

[He says it in a conspiratorial voice, like they're playing a game. Secrets are always fun. Well, unless the person is so boring that they don't have any good secrets. But she's an urchin from space so he figures she must have something to say.]

[steal]

[A secret? She wants to tell him one, but there aren't many things she keeps secret. She's too blunt and open to have them, though there are a few things. Mostly tragic backstory related issues, which make the smile on her face falter.]

My parents sold me when I was a child.

[It's a new secret so it's fresh on her mind.]

I grew up alone and belonging to someone else because they wanted drinking money.

[Unless that's not the kind of secret he wants to hear? She hesitates before adding on,]

Also, I can make rocks float. [She gestures wide with her hands.] Really big rocks.

[kiljoy]

[Sold as a child, not entirely unexpected given what he's already gleaned about her background. He hears this revelation without raising an eyebrow. Making rocks float, now that's far more interesting. He cocks his head.]

Just rocks?

[That's rather specific.]

[steal]

No.

[Her answer is prompt, and accompanied by a smile. She's leaning in so she can whisper the answer between them, like this is all a fun game they're playing. ]

So much more than that.

[kiljoy]

[This is the most fun he's had all night. That isn't saying much, but still. Kilgrave smiles back, eyes glinting.]

Go on.

[steal]

[There's really not a lot here for her to move around. Her eyes scan the room and she frowns, before figuring that she might as well just go ahead and use him. She has to focus, of course, it's not just something she can do casually yet. Her eyes slide closed and she concentrates on feeling him through the Force, and on extending that in order to gently and safely lift him so that he's floating about six inches above the floor. With her hand outstretched, she uses it to guide the motion. Nice and slow, steady and soft. The last thing she wants is to send him flying through the ceiling or anything, so she opens her eyes to take a peek at both her work and the look on his face.]

[ooc: It can not have worked if you'd rather play it that way!]

[kiljoy]

[He's floating! It's an odd, weightless sensation, like she's suddenly removed the gravity around him. He makes a surprised sound when he first lifts up and then stares at her in wonder when she moves him around the floor. Very gentle. She opens her eyes and Kilgrave grins at her.]

You are one impressive woman.

[He's genuinely impressed. He has to wonder what would happen if she chose not to be gentle, but still... It's pretty cool.]

[steal]

[She grins up at him in return, laughing as her cheeks turn pink. Being called impressive is new, and she isn't sure how to respond. But she does give a gentle motion to the side with her hand, sending him off in that direction. A sweep downward has him gently landing back on his own feet.]

I'm still learning; but this thing that's inside me, this power, I'm not sure what its limits are.

[kiljoy]

[Back on his feet is something of a relief, even though it was a fun experience. Kilgrave looks down, wriggles his toes. Then he walks back over to Rey, regaining his composure.]

So, you recently discovered this power?

[steal]

[She gives a quick nod of her head.]

I've always had it, but it was only recently that it awakened within me.

[kiljoy]

You have a gift. I'd say we should celebrate, but, well. [He shrugs, waving his hands. They're stuck in this dump.] Even so, thank you for showing me. Gives me a little bit of hope that we might get out of here.

[He looks up at the ceiling. Is there no way out? It seems impossible that they could have been teleported here, but...]

[steal]

[Her eyes follow his and she looks upward. She thinks the only way out is flying off this planet, though it seems less and less likely the more she talks to others about Earth. It's disappointing, but she won't let it get her down.

When her eyes look away from up above and back to him, she looks a little resigned. They're stuck here, but only for now.]

There's so much I want to ask about Earth, but I don't think any of the information will help us here. But I will find a way to leave, I promise.