The Quiet Place Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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:
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!
no subject
Hello 9S! Sorry. It's just really good to see you again.
no subject
It's good to see you too, Operator. Sorry if I worried you.
no subject
As long as you are all right, I don't mind.
I don't know how much help I can be without the monitoring systems or library* of Home**, but if there is anything you need assistance with while we're here, please don't hesitate to ask!
[This may not be the Bunker or the Earth they know, but she'll still do her duty as best she can! In truth, it's a relief - it gives her a firmer idea of purpose.
*by which she means database
**by which she means The Bunker, but she wasn't sure whether to spell it out or what and figured he'd understand her meaning.]
no subject
Can do! The same goes for you, Operator. We Y-o-R-H-a have to stick together.
[A pause, and then he adds.]
I was actually about to go gather some supplies. You could come with me if you want.
no subject
I'd like that! There is still so much of this place to see!
[And, well, she's not used to being left totally to her own devices, anyway, with such a vague directive as 'move in'. The only possession she had was a flower she picked on the way, and that is now in her chosen room, left by the window to dry, so there's nothing really to move aside from helping the others around the house.]
no subject
[He shrugs with both hands, and then gestures for the door.]
Two androids can carry twice as many supplies!
no subject
[The thoughts are connected, but she's making a conscious effort to try to stay a bit on mission, so to speak, despite her mind wandering to things that would make this easier. She misses her terminal and all the extra data she could pick up at the Bunker.]
no subject
[He knows about as much as 6O when it comes to stocking and furnishing a human house.
9S practically grins at an opportunity to be helpful.]
You can leave the map making to me, Operator! I've already started putting together data from the areas I've explored.
no subject
Right!
[She smiles back, bouncing a little on her feet.]
That's great news! Maybe we can find a way to pool and share the map data? Since we're on the surface we should be able to get really good clarity*!
[ * by which she means resolution. She, like the rest of the Operators who've had to listen to bitching about the maps, is pretty aware that the satellite resolution back home left a lot to be desired... ]
no subject
That shouldn't be too difficult. I'm storing the data on my visor, but I can convert it to a common device-friendly format any time.
[9S' rubs the back of his head, lips quirked in a smile.]
My maps aren't exactly high-resolution either, you know... But they show more ground-level data.
no subject
[It's lucky they're capable of disabling their speech functions, otherwise she'd laugh here. As it stands, she opens her mouth, shaking a little like she is laughing before she covers her mouth for a moment. She's heard and read a lot of bitching from ground units about map data ok. Embarrassed, she nonetheless continues after a moment:]
Well, there's a reason we encouraged ground units to explore for themselves! Besides,
there doesn't seem to be the same level of signal interference here.
no subject
[All the time! 9S is probably the one who complains the most about the maps, so...]
Even if the signal's better, my maps are made with the same assets. Still, this place isn't that complex. They do their job.