quietplacelogs | INTRO LOG #1

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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:

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

( ooc: if you'd like for a tdm thread to be canon, just let me know! i can be reached at

goatsong if you need anything. )

(1) - MUZZLE AND MUTE
[There were certain sensations lost to Lu Li when she awoke in this body. Gone were "hot" and "cold," "comfortable" and "discomfort." Those were all replaced by a constant datastream simply telling her what is. She has yet to experience human discomforts like headaches or dizziness, which is why her arrival is so strange. She assumes it's an issue regarding her sensors, at first. Her mind (systems?) shouldn't be running so slow. She tries weakly to voice dissent when they take her clothes - she can't have them see what she looks like beneath - but the signal fails to send and she remains towering and silent as they redress her in the jumpsuit.

By the time the whole ordeal is over, she's coming to terms with what's happened. Out of all the arrivals, she's one of the most alien - a towering, six-and-a-half foot robot who refuses to move unless people move in front of her. If someone looks her way, she's quick to turn her head, as though ashamed of her features.

... what in the world is she to do now? This was Reims, yet it wasn't. So many things were wrong with this world.]

(2A) - A HOUSE OF ONE'S OWN
[Anyone who's moving into House 8 will receive a surprise. Lu Li has to bend slightly in order not to hit her metallic head on the doorway, her movements slow and plodding. She barely looks at her antiquated surroundings but - at the sight of people, she stops dead in her tracks. Her red eye shrinks and expands, zooming onto the face in an instant. It's not that she's trying to intimidate whoever it is. She's had plenty of bad experiences, enough that her first instinct is to look for a reaction. People here have an odd attitude. If she senses hostility or discomfort, she'll be quick to try and hurry past you.]

(2B) - MOVING DAY
[It takes her an hour or so to properly calm down. Being assigned to work - as a part of the community, not as a bot - is an odd sensation. When was the last time someone looked at her as something close to a human being? It's strange to be in such a desolate and miserable city and encounter such kindness. Lu Li catches up with the search party steathily. Despite her size, she appears like a ghost. She's found some spare bedsheets, which she's now wrapped over her head in a make-shift shawl - no doubt an attempt to conceal her features.

Lu Li is more than willing to help with the heavier items. If she sees you eyeing something large or trying to pick it up, she'll cautiously approach. With swift fingers, she types on her device:]

I CAN TAKE THAT FOR YOU.

(2C) - A TOKEN OF APPRECIATION
[Even in an environment of smothering fear, these people still found ways to celebrate. It isn't raucous like the parties Cassie used to throw, nor is it lively. She can't partake in any of the food or drinks yet... despite its silence, Lu Li thinks it's admirable. There were far more reasons for the people of Reims to give up and surrender to the unknown. They chose, instead, to welcome outsiders with as much warmth and grace they could muster. If they could make it, then perhaps Lu Li can learn as well and in time, find her way back "home"--

For the most part, Lu Li stays on the outskirts of the party. She has nothing in her hands - no plates, no glasses - but what she does have is a worn photograph she can't take her eye off of. She thought it'd been lost to her memories, forever an intangible want that she would never have again. There were times when she doubted that she truly was Lu Li. This...

... it was a far greater gift than anyone could ever imagine.]

(3) - SOUND EATERS
[It all sounds like a fanastical story, the sort you'd read in books or see in movies. Lu Li always complained that Cassie was too adventurous, who only responded cheerfully that Lu Li was secretly an explorer, too. Both of them desired something to add thrill into their lives. But Lu Li didn't want it like this.

Today, she is a little more friendly. It's not much, but she's at least willing to be closer to the crowds than before. Once the general briefing is over, she glances at someone nearby.]

CAN'T WE REFUSE THAT MEETING?

[Her mechanical voice, devoid of any intonation or emotion, is a soft buzz. She was careful to adjust the volume.]

[ well, the house is nothing unimpressive, but it's also not an absolute dump, and -- what the hell is that. tanaka turns at the sight of movement from the corner of his vision, only to give a startled jerk when he sees a mecha (?!) moving through a doorway. too bad for lu li, he's in the room right near the entrance, so there's way easy escape route for her, either.

he looks incredibly wary of her, and he doesn't stop her if she hurries by. but after a hesitant pause, he paces cautiously after her, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. the rules said to be quiet, but they said nothing about a goddamned robot invasion. ]

[Ah.

She really had hoped this could be resolved without too much of a fuss. Lu Li can read the suspicion all over the man's face. It reminds her of the way the Ji-Ok prison guards had regarded her, how the warden looked at her before he realized the profit that could be made. Regardless of how she looks, she doesn't feel intimidating or powerful. Under those eyes, she feels...

... small.

Lu Li remains still when she realizes he's following her, not wanting to startle him further. Very slowly, she turns her head, almost afraid to see what expression he has on now.]

[ the robot(?) turns to look at him when he approaches. but it doesn't seem aggressive, either. is it some sort of guard-bot the people here sent to enforce the silence rule? tanaka's expression reads equal parts wary and confused, and he assesses lu li for a moment before seeming to think of something and digging around for his device. ]

Is a person controlling this?

[ held up in the direction of her eye. he's kind of assuming this robot is just a hunk of metal being controlled by a real, proper person. ]

[That's more or less a common response, though most interrogation questions run along the lines of "What's your serial number?" or "Present your identification." Lu Li isn't sure how to respond to this man. If she's honest, will he want to scrap her for her motherboard...?

She decides to play it safe. She fully turns around to face him and takes out her device.]

YES. WHO ARE YOU?

[ that's kind of discomforting on two different levels. one, he's never had a robot demand he identify himself. and two ... it's been a while since he hasn't immediately been recognized. tanaka frowns at that, more weirded out than angry or upset, as he types his response. ]

Somebody who got told to live here.

Were you sent by the people who run this place? Are you monitoring us?

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