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bequiet) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
quietplacelogs2018-01-15 08:09 pm
bequiet) wrote in quietplacelogs2018-01-15 08:09 pm
INTRO LOG #1
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:
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no subject
It's not like I really want that to be the case, you know? But if there could be the chance...
[but one of the natives answers and shoots down that theory; Rosa looks down at the ground after, blinking hard.]
Oh. I'm so sorry.
no subject
Well... I'm depressed now, how about you?
[her voice is gentle and light, making it not-quite a joke, but her eyes are serious over her faint smile. they're steady on Rosa's face.]
no subject
[she musters a smile of her own after a few moments, though it's a crooked thing. horror is horror and bleak is bleak and here, apparently, dead is dead. so: perhaps it's best to focus on the living.]
They want us to stay at least a whole month, huh? Can they even transfer you work credits...?
no subject
[a bit of catch in her tone, there, though she keeps it level: this is going to mess a lot of things up. there's more than just that, of course; Rick might hold the apartment for a while, but eventually he'll box up their stuff and send it to her dad. her dad will panic. she's not a ghost, and a lot of people are going to be worried about her if this goes on very long. her throat gets tight thinking of their despair.
she forces another joke out past it, her lips curving up in a smile. she doesn't want to linger on that too long right now.]
Maybe the union has abduction insurance. For aliens, or whatever. I should've asked the rep.
no subject
she can't track all of what Jan's thinking, of course, but she has an idea. she doesn't have many connections in the living world yet herself, but selfishly and very privately she's glad Jan's here with her. she might go a little crazy if only one of them had been brought here, with the other one left alone and wondering.]
I'll vouch for you if you need it. You know that, right?
no subject
[Jan hesitates, then leans into the contact, wrapping her arm around Rosa too. she guesses that Rosa probably needs a hug as much as she does right now. she's not surprised by the offer, and she appreciates it, she really does-- even if she's not sure it will actually do any good for their home situation.
their situation here is much more pressing and immediate, either way, and much scarier. Jan thinks she can deal with an angry boss and landlord, even if she hates the thought of it. she hasn't really wrapped her mind around monsters and mayhem yet.]
But what about you? Did you sleep okay last night...?
[it was weird to have her in a different building.]
no subject
I got a few hours. Not great, but better than nothing...some of the other people in the house were in the same shape. Everyone's worried.
[her sleeping habits had been shaky at best to start with, though they'd been improving before the two of them were dragged here. the problem wasn't the quiet echoing emptiness of the room around her -- that had been familiar enough in its way to be a kind of cold comfort. the problem was that her roommate wasn't there. still, it's something she can deal with, so she tries not to let on that that's a thing; not aloud.]
What about you?
no subject
[she takes a deep breath. she needs to approach a topic with Rosa, and she's not quite sure how to broach it. this isn't something to discuss with the other new arrivals, some of whom are wildly out of step with Jan's experience. of course they'll find all this unfamiliar.
it's the things that are familiar that unnerve her.]
Rosa, have you noticed anything weird about this place? Like-- weirder than just, everything else.
All the technology looks like it's something we'd use, but it's as beat up as if it was one of Rick's old hellholes. Like it's been sitting unused for longer than it's been released at home. Even-- christ, I looked at the plumbing fixtures, and even if it's all foreign I swear to god I could look in the right store and find the same brand of rock wool that I'm used to for the walls. But this place was abandoned a long time ago.
no subject
[she trails off, with a shiver. she didn't notice because she's more used to abandoned places than populated ones, still; watching one room and its underpinnings crumble around her a little at a time. a couple of trips around the neighbourhood following the brick in Jan's backpack, a little exploration of the city once they were sure she could get around without freaking anybody out...she guesses that's not enough to set against that familiarity. not yet.]
It could just be this area?
no subject
["I don't like it" isn't anything like sufficient to describe Jan's unease, but it is what it is. Jan understating things is perhaps the most familiar thing in this world, for both of them.]
...not sure there's anything to do about it. Just putting that out there.
no subject
[a deep breath.]
...I don't think they'll stop us from looking around further and getting more info, at least. We're going to have to be careful, but we can do that.
[somehow she doesn't think it's as simple as just putting together one big puzzle that will open the magic door to go home again, but they won't know until they try.]
no subject
[what is life without loud noises? Jan doesn't even start to make it a joke, though. even without her chosen career, she's someone who goes through life loud and brazen and unapologetic, dragging furniture and kicking walls. the pall of the quiet here is dreadful.
for all Rosa's silence up till recently, she's worried for her, too. Rosa finally has a real voice again; was finally starting to open up to the world with it. she deserves more than another tomb.]
...we'll think of something, for sure.
no subject
[Rosa chooses not to comment on the rest.]
no subject
[Jan smiles at her (former?) roommate, mood instantly lightening. it's stupid, but the thought of not being able to make something -- not being able to see it in her mind's eye and put it together with her hands -- was horribly oppressive. even the idea that she can return silently to this room and hammer the shit out of something gives her incredible peace of mind, at least for the moment.]
Only old people even do those, but whatever! Bring timeshares back. Momma needs a new standing wardrobe.
Or actually, I was thinking that a row of hooks would be better, since I don't want squeaky hinges-- we just can't attach anything to the walls without hammering into the studs. Is there anything you need?
[that was a wild left turn into furniture construction, but what were you expecting, really?]
no subject
she did a good thing just now]
I think I'm pretty okay for just--room stuff, for now? I have a couch. I'm not that sure about storage; it's not like there isn't space to just put things down in a corner...
Oh. I can't figure out a way to really pad cookware without burning it, but come to think of it, I don't know how we're going to do heating that doesn't make noise, either.
no subject
[Jan's leaned back from the hug again by this time; now she puts her hand over her mouth, muffling her reaction. her tone is mock-exasperated, but she's covering up a laugh, not a growl, and her smile under her hand has broadened. that's so typical Rosa.]
You moron! Oh, I don't know what to do about heat, either, everything that makes heat or carries water makes noise...
no subject
[puffs her cheeks out, though the corners of her mouth are twitching in a telling way]
I know how to stretch it, but they all start with an actual fire, yeah. Maybe we'd do better to all just insulate the rooms really well?
no subject
[Jan huffs gently, distracted by thinking through the whole heat, light, and cooking problem. she has a vague idea that the houses' central air still works, and the electricity seems to though she isn't sure how; if this place is a ruin, where is the power coming from? she needs to take a better look at the solar panels on the roof. she isn't an electrician, but she's been around enough electrical work that she suspects that the solar paneling in this community is of a type she's never seen before.]
I wish I could put an entire house in that room and just rip out all the drywall. There are things you can do for better sound insulation. Just blowing foam in won't cut it for sound... you can tell these houses were built before all of this happened. The pipes might as well have speakers hooked up to them.
Even boiling water makes a noise! Maybe we should just find out how to do shit without nails and build a better house. Or leave.
no subject
I keep thinking, maybe if we went across the river, if we were really careful, we might be able to find -- an airport? Some clues? Something useful?
But there's no noise from that part of the city either.
no subject
and yet...]
...the thing that makes me think that something bigger is going on, is like... okay, one, the weathering. It really seems like we're in the future somehow? That's what the people here say, too. I guess that could be faked, but--
[she takes a deep breath, sorting out the rest of her feelings about it. she rode a magic carpet. she talked to an elf and a man who said he came from space. what is going on here...?]
--I can't believe that there's actually a government conspiracy big enough to cover all this up in fucking France. I mean, it's not even a remote area! It's just a fucking random city in France! Someone would have posted about it.
no subject
...I feel like we're having a bad dream, or someone on the floor under us lit up some -- some bad hash that came up through the boards, or something. But it isn't stopping.
no subject
Oh, God, thank you. At least it's not just me. I think I made some guy in my house think I didn't like him when I'm just freaked the fuck out.
I just keep thinking, how are we gonna get out of this one?
no subject
(no)
she does pull Jan's hands up and rest her forehead on their tangled fingers briefly.]
Research?
no subject
Sure.
no subject
[keeps their hands where they are for a moment longer, taking a deep breath, then lowers them, smiling a brief and perhaps surprising smile]
Good talk!
(no subject)