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

i

[oorah]

[ cards. it reminds him of a simpler time, as so many innocuous items do. as frank attempts to pass her by, they catch his eye and he stops before he's willed his feet to stop moving. he looks around like someone is going to judge him for playing a hand of cards with someone. the way his life is going, he'll be struck down before his first turn. but sit he does, across from her. he gestures to the cards and points to himself. deal him in. even if he does look like wannabe roadkill at present. ]

[laytheghost]

[the girl weighs Frank with a clear eye, her measuring look unexpectedly sharp with interest as her gaze moves over his bruised and battered face. then her grin broadens a little and she motions for him to sit, leaning forward to balance her elbow on her knee and deal the cards out between them. five-card draw, apparently; they're starting with the old classic before things get interesting.

Jan knows-- she knows-- that however this guy got his teeth kicked in, it's probably nothing good. her dad said often enough that anyone over the age of thirty stupid enough to pick a fight with a baseball bat is a damn moron at best, and it's not like she disagrees with that. on the other hand, he looks like one of the guys. she's talked to a hundred of him without black eyes at construction sites and making deliveries, taking a smoking break before they get back to work.

she scrubs some lint out of her pocket and antes up, making it official. with her other hand, she types a quick message to show him:]

so did he catch u in bed w her or did she scream the wrong name the night aftr??

[oorah]

[ the only thing in his pocket is the photograph of the liebermans the natives gave him. they really know how to kick a guy when he's down, huh? he keeps his cards close to his chest and plays his turn.

it's hard not to laugh at her scenario, though it really isn't funny. frank just shakes his head. the truth is so much worse than any of that and little glowing screens couldn't do it justice anyway. ]

[laytheghost]

[Jan shrugs slightly and puts her device aside. she feels a flicker of disappointment as she checks her cards and raises Frank's bet by one lint ball, long fingers tapping the table soundlessly-- she was pretty sure that line would make him at least crack a grin. she can normally get the first laugh out of startlement, when someone doesn't expect crude ribbing from someone with her face. mr. conviviality across the table from her seemed like he could've used a laugh.

there are a couple explanations for his stoicism. maybe he's got no sense of humor. maybe he's a bad dude after all. maybe whatever happened to him is too much for even jokes about getting laid. but... despite all that, he sat down with her, which means that he's indulging in that most universal of human urges: the desire to take a chance.

that can mean only one thing. whatever the hell is up with him, it's her sacred duty to do her best to win his pants.]

[oorah]

[ she would have an easy time, his mind distracted. and he's rusty besides. he hates the way the people here look at him, but it's because they don't know. no one knows anything about each other, something that at first comforted him but now he's realizing how inconvenient it is. that this isn't going to stop. he'll be pestered over and over until he eventually gives them what they want -- so he may as well preempt the whole thing.

he slides his device over to her after typing a quick message. it's something like an apology, since her joke was funny. he just isn't in a laughing mood. he never really is. ] my brother betrayed me.

[laytheghost]

[that... wasn't the response Jan expected. she'd been willing to let it go when the joke didn't land. this just got personal instead, a turn of events which throws her. she doesn't know what this guy's brother did. she doesn't know if he wants sympathy for it. she isn't sure she would, in his position. she'd want to try to tough it out in front of all these strangers.

either way, it seems like she stepped in it. whatever this guy's deal is, it seems heavy and recent. imagine getting in a fight with family and getting dragged into all this bullshit before your face is even fixed yet?]

shit dude
sorry bout that

[the bro response might be terribly inadequate, but you go to what you know.]

punisher spoilas in here

[oorah]

[ it's actually incredibly welcome, and goes to smoothing out his mood a bit. frank quirks a lopsided smile this time and pulls the device back. then he takes his turn, seeming much more focused on the game as a result. he's not sorry. he'd do it again in a heartbeat even if it got his face as fucked up as billy's. it didn't -- his wounds will heal. so what does it matter really, when he came out on top in the end? he isn't looking for sympathy here, far from it. he just didn't want this girl to think he's as much of a dick as he seems. who knows why, really. ]

[laytheghost]

[that was apparently the right response. Jan smiles back at her battered opponent, the moment of relief lightening her eyes. she's just as glad if he doesn't want to talk more about it right now. talking about insane family drama with guys who look like a lawnmower ran over them sounds like a great way to get yourself shot.

still, as odd as the whole exchange managed to be, she recognizes the smile for what it is: he's letting her off for putting her foot in it. she can appreciate that. even if he's a bad dude, he doesn't strike her as threatening or unfriendly, at least not to her at this moment. she figures she can just about manage to play cards with the guy. he almost bluffs her, this time.

she waits till the next hand to pursue the new acquaintance, throwing him another smile so he knows it's just shit talk.]

im jan
& ur the kind of dude who bets like hes got kings when im 99% u have a deuce and a prayer
gonna raise again, tough guy??

[oorah]

[ he lifts an eyebrow, bemused though it may not look like it with the state of his face right now. he indeed raises again and waits to see if she'll challenge him or not. ]

[laytheghost]

[Jan raises another ball of fuzz immediately. she's not going to say something like that without putting her money-- or at least her pocket lint-- where her mouth is.]

[oorah]

[ his smile gets smug, and he fans out his cards for her to see. full house, baby. he motions with his other hand. pay up. ]

[laytheghost]

[she almost starts laughing before she remembers the prohibition against sound. as it stands, she muffles her face in her shoulder, the jumpsuit's soft fabric absorbing the noise but not her grin.]

fuck you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jan pays up her lint promptly, then offers Frank the cards so he can deal the next hand. she's no welch or quitter. he's going to be very rich in jumpsuit fibers at this rate -- perhaps he can knit himself socks with them, or something.]

your turn. dont think this is over

[she wonders what game he plays. more five-card? Texas hold'em?]

[oorah]

[ he laughs soundlessly this time, shaking his head. he takes the cards from her and tosses them together as quietly as he can. he never noticed how loud shuffling cards was until he's trying to do it silently. rummy? he mouths, wondering if she knows it. because that's his game. or it was. ]

[laytheghost]

[Jan hesitates, chewing on a fingertip thoughtfully, then gives him a decisive nod. she hasn't played rummy in a long time, but she thinks she can just about remember the rules. most of the draw games are about trying to get a better hand, aren't they? that kind of fits with the situation they're in. she can roll with it.

she fiddles with her device, pulling up the calculator function, then gives Frank another nod and a thumbs up. honestly, this isn't the worst way to spend a party, even a strange silent one.]