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:

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NAVIGATION

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[there's one advantage to Jan's still-unfamiliar spiritual powers: she can see that the carpet is... some kind of living thing. she follows him into the foyer, kind of dazed. this thing is sure happening. it's continuing to happen. it's a thing, all right. for some reason, this is a much bigger mental leap than believing in some kind of sound-eating monster, and that shakes her.

after a moment, a thought pops up: maybe it's haunted? that's enough to at least sort of pull her out of the mental blue screen. Carpet doesn't seem quite like a ghost, but something she's familiar with getting attached to an inanimate object makes more sense than... a rug just coming to life.

oh, yeah. the rug that came to life is trying to help her. Jan shakes herself and gestures broadly towards the garage, leading the way down there and opening the door for the flying mattress chariot. if this thing is alive or aware, however that works, she doesn't want to be a dick.

she quickly grabs her device out of her pocket as she walks and waves it in front of where she thinks its eyes must be, based on where it's pointing itself:]

thanks

[Carpet follows where he's directed, picking a likely looking spot in the garage and carefully turning in midair. One edge touches the floor nearly noiselessly, then the other; Carpet bends double to grab the edge and lift it enough to slide himself out, revealing he's holding a communicator of his own. A quick glance at Jan's, and he gives her what's definitely a thumbs up. No problem!]

[Jan helps the carpet -- him? -- finish settling the bed on the floor. it's quiet, much quieter than she could've managed on her own... this ended far better than her own refusal to give up might have. not that she was adverse to help, or that she would have known to ask for help from an actual flying carpet.

she should ask him if he needs help in return. this was really very kind of him. a considerate weird hallucination rug out of nowhere. Jan reminds herself that this is far from the strangest thing she's seen in new digs, though it was a few weeks before Rosa tried to move anything in front of her.]

do u need anything?? i found some stuff back where i got the bed

I don't think so? Is there anything I should get?

[Carpet scratches his head at that, genuinely thoughtful. He's never owned anything before, after all, and he lives where his friends live. The rare occasion that he actually needs to use anything, he just borrows it from them. Is there anything besides the communicator device that he needs to live in a place like this?]

[the carpet has a head. that's certainly something that Jan knows now, from the way it's moving. it's-- almost strange, honestly, how humanoid it seems. why would something with such an inhuman body move and act so much like one...? the ghosts she's seen who'd had and lost a human shape didn't try to project one into their movements till after they'd started to remember and change back again. it's more like a cartoon animal in a kid's movie than a spirit... strange to see, in real life.

what would a carpet want for personal effects? a vacuum? there wouldn't be one silent enough. of course, there's only one way to find out.]

i dont know
are there any things u like?

I like flying? And my friends!

[Hope you weren't expecting an actually useful answer, there.]

[that's... sort of cute? oh no. Jan feels an unexpected smile tilt the corner of her face.]

hey me 2
what about a picture of the world from high up?
i saw a painting

[she didn't pick it up for herself because she needed actual practical things, and she guesses that's the mentality everyone's taking right now. but the piece was nice in that blended-colors way Jan likes but doesn't know how to describe in art terms. and this dude is a carpet, apparently. why the hell not?]

That sounds pretty.

[Why the hell not indeed? Practically speaking, he really doesn't need anything, he's just a carpet. But if it's something they both would like, why not pick it up?]

lets go get it then. can u carry anything??
i dont know if youre magic or what

[she turns towards the garage door to head out again in the direction of the remembered painting: it feels like the least she can do. Jan wonders if a literal magic carpet ride is in the offing for her, but she also doesn't want to ask. begging for a piggyback from a stranger would seem awfully intrusive if they weren't a carpet, so carpet people are the same... probably.]

[Is Carpet..... flexing? Yes, that's definitely flexing, and definitely completely ridiculous, because him having muscles of any sort is a physical impossibility. Still, it gets the point across, right? He's strong! He can carry mattresses and communicator devices and people and everything, no problem!

He wouldn't even mind being asked for a ride; that's what he exists for, after all! For the moment though, he goes to follow Jan outside instead. As long as she's okay walking, then there's no need to offer to carry her just yet.]

[Jan has to put her hand over her mouth to avoid laughing at the carpet flex. okay, point taken. the trip back to the point where the natives have collected some of the spare furniture isn't such a bad walk across the soft sand, though Jan winces a bit at how it gets between her toes. living in a desert state never accustomed her to sand; California's not quite the same kind of desert as Agrabah, and anyway, that's what sidewalks are for.

when they arrive, the furniture's been picked over pretty thoroughly, but the painting she had in mind is still there. it does look rather like the view while flying.]

well wouldja lookit that, its still here

It looks so green!

[He's a little amazed at the thought of such a lush, verdant landscape, to be honest. Oases aside, it's so different from Agrabah that it's a novel sight.

He picks the picture up carefully--with what would amount to his feet, in direct contrast to his more human behavior earlier--and starts typing again, holding it up for Jan to see. She had looked a little uncomfortable on the walk there.....]

Do your feet hurt?

[Jan's-- charmed, there's no other word for it, by the carpet's reaction to the painting. maybe he really is a magic carpet from some fairytale, desert land. she's glad that they came back for the painting. maybe having it on his wall will bring him a little happiness, and extra happiness doesn't seem so freely available here that she'll pass it up when there's an opportunity for it.

maybe he'd like it if she made him something, once she's figured out how to do that without making any noise. something else for the list.]

i guess a little
im not used to not having my boots!
is it hard for u to fly around like that

Flying is what I was made for. It was harder to learn how to walk!

[He would love it if Jan made him something, honestly. That sort of consideration is something Carpet just isn't used to experiencing. But he's quite used to attending to others, and flying comes as naturally to him as breathing must to a human, so.....

Carpet flutters down to lay flat on the ground in front of Jan, a silent but obvious invitation. She'd feel better with a ride back home, right?]

[Jan takes a moment to notice the gesture, busy thinking through what nice things you could do for a carpet -- would being steam cleaned be like a spa treatment, or more along the lines of some kind of boiling water torture...? she blinks when she notices what Carpet is doing, then kneels down to show him her device again.]

r u offering a ride??
u sure little buddy? i dont want2 take ur magic carpeting 4 granted!

[Have a thumbs up, Jan--he doesn't mind! After all, he'll be flying back home anyway--one girl isn't nearly enough of a load to make a difference to him. So why not spare her a little trouble when he barely has to go out of his way for it?]

[she gives him a thumbs up back. wow. apparently, this is really her life right now.

she makes sure that they've got the picture secure (if it falls they're both going to regret taking it with them...) and picks up a couple more small furniture pieces like towels that she would have carried back anyway. then she gingerly steps onto the carpet, half expecting it to collapse under her weight and dump her on her ass. she'll have to make sure not to shout if it happens--]

[There's not even a ripple as Jan steps on--just a bit of give underfoot, like walking on a trampoline before you start bouncing. Carpet waits patiently for her to sit and get settled; nobody would be happy if she fell!

Once she's situated, though, Carpet wastes no time in taking off. They're in no real hurry to get home, are they? So maybe she won't mind a little play time on the way back! Enjoy the wind in your hair and the freedom of flight, Jan--Carpet is moving way faster than he was before, zooming up into the sky to soar high over the rooftops.]

[because this doesn't operate quite like it does in cartoon physics, Jan has to grab a fold of carpet securely with her hands and hunker well down before she feels like she's not about to fly off. once she has, though--

wow. the view like this is incredible. she can feel her breath leaving her lungs in awe far more surely than the wind is taking it from her. silence up here isn't an imposition or a heavy weight on everything; it's transcendent, beautiful, a sign of how removed they are from the concerns of the world. even a destroyed Reims looks like artwork from this angle. it's more thrilling than the best rollercoaster she's ever been able to ride on, and some of those were pretty good.

can anything get them up here? could she let out a whoop to get this giddiness out of her chest somehow? she doesn't quite dare, but god, it's hard to resist.]

[Does she understand a little, now? Why flying isn't difficult, why he loves it so much--when you can literally rise above it all, even such desolate ruins are beautiful enough to reach inside and touch your heart. You can effortlessly leave your troubles behind you, until they look at tiny and frail and insignificant as the people far below. This high up, there's nobody and nothing to see or disturb them--not even insects or birds, in a place like this.

Unless Jan wants to ask for a different route, or to go somewhere specific, Carpet starts spiraling back down towards the block of shared houses all the newcomers have been put in. It's nowhere near the fastest or most direct path back home, but it is pretty scenic.]

[Jan doesn't ask for a change of route-- she's not sure she wants to let go of her hold to type something on her device, and she's almost positive that she doesn't want to risk speaking. besides, it doesn't even occur to her till they're almost down that once the enchanting ride is over, it'll be over. coming literally back to earth is no small thing.

she takes a moment to breathe quietly through a tight throat once Carpet comes to a halt, then slowly climbs off and kneels down next to where Carpet's "face" is, resting a hand gently on the woven fibers of his surface. she types briefly and messily one-handed on her device and shows it to him, along with a huge, beaming smile.]

THNKA yoou

[No words are needed for something simple and heartfelt like this, even though it would be the human thing to do. Carpet just bobs energetically in place, leaning up to nuzzle under Jan's chin like an affectionate pet. She's quite welcome! Being able to make her so happy is all Carpet really needs to make him happy, too.]

[no, noooooo. this is too cute. she loves this carpet. and really, what an incredible experience to have. even if this place is terrible, and everything about coming here has been a gut-wrenching uproot of everything she's used to-- doesn't she at least know the feeling of flying on a magic carpet now? you learn to live in the world that life gives you, or you change it: that's been something that Jan's believed at some level for her whole life.

Carpet certainly has reason to be happy with the results of his offer of flight. Jan's obviously thrilled, and she pats him again as he nuzzles up to her, affectionate. it takes her a couple of minutes to get herself together and sit back, though when she does, she's still relaxed and smiling.]

[You learn to live with what life gives you, or you change it. For most of his long life, Carpet has accepted things as they come, dutiful and obedient, enjoying the good times and patiently enduring the bad. Sometimes, though--sometimes, even if only in small ways, he's able to change the world around him. Maybe it's saving someone's life, or helping to conquer a great evil, or bringing two hearts together, or even just making a friend smile..... but even little gestures can still be significant to someone. Even a tiny change can still be a victory.

Coming here has been bewildering and concerning for the most part so far, and yet..... somehow, strangely liberating, too? Having a device to be able to talk with people is amazing, and he's thrilled to be able to make so many friends; he's not sure he's ever met so many people so quickly in his whole life! What an amazing opportunity to connect with humans. And what a good opportunity to help everyone adjust to such a sudden, shocking displacement, to be able to make an awful situation that little bit brighter!

Once Jan sits back, Carpet flits back into the air, holding the door open to let her in. Time to go put away their stuff, now that they've come back down to earth and more mundane matters--almost a letdown after a trip like that, isn't it?]

["letdown" is another strangely perfect word for the feeling of their return. but the lift in Jan's spirits remains: she may be trapped here, but she's made friends with a strange, magical creature now, and that's a pick-me-up that will last her quite a while.

figuring out how to hang a picture with no ability to use hammer or nails, how to get linens on Jan's new bed, and how to silently arrange the other furniture they've brought to their new living quarters will take them quite a good chunk of the rest of the afternoon, but at least it's not an unpleasant task, and the house feels a bit more homelike at the end of it.]

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INTRO LOG #1

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Might be a good place to either end or timeskip?

either is fine with me!