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

[tropism]

[ he's not rude, you just need to be better at talking.

and that gives him pause, because he doesn't think he's ever encountered demi-humans before. immortality is such a weird concept to think of given what experience he's had of time and warped time. he frowns as he thinks about fighting one, and the fact that that sounds like a lot more trouble than its worth, plus if you can't kill them, what does that mean - that you spend your life running away from them until you become like them? ]

I've never heard of them. Nor have I experienced anything remotely similar, and I've been in pretty bizarre circumstances.

But they said we're going to meet the sound eaters at the end of the month. So I suppose we'll see - and even then, whatever experiences others have from different worlds can come in handy in terms of survival and fighting similar kinds of monsters.

What do Ajin want? Why do they exist in your world?

[subject002]

[ that last question earns a stare like it was a really stupid thing to ask. becauase to him, it is. imagining a world where the existence of ajin isn't considered common sense is kind of dizzying, and he scowls as he tries to figure out how to respond. explaining this feels very strange. explaining it in a way that doesn't implicate himself is even weirder. ]

Who knows what they want. Or why they exist. Ajin don't know they're ajin until they die once, and then come back. They're just there. A few dozen of them worldwide.

[ tanaka looks uncomfortable saying this, and he clears his throat a little before looking back to giorno. ]

What kinda bizarre circumstances have you been in? You sound pretty calm hearing this.

[tropism]

[ that's an odd way of describing it. he makes it sound like they were just watching people, waiting for a time for them to exist before they fade again to the background. not much of a threat, but then again, he's not telling him a lot to begin with.

so he'll move on from there. when he feels like talking again - and giorno is fairly certain that should any similarities arise from the monsters in this town and his ajin - he would hear more.

as for that question, well. where should he even begin. ]

Back in my world, people develop many different abilities under duress.

Mine happens to be healing, to a certain extent. Creating life is another, and it's not really as exciting as it sounds.

Different personalities tend to react to their newfound abilities in different ways, some more hostile than others, and I've been in many different petty or seriously dangerous fights where it was settled primarily based on how you fight with your powers.

And if I'm calm, it's only because I can't quite visualize or understand what it's like being with Ajin. I'm sure things will be different if I did.

[subject002]

[ different abilities under duress. this sounds like something from one of those manga he used to read as a kid, to be honest. tanaka looks at giorno with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity, though the deep furrow of his brow makes it pretty obvious he's finding that explanation hard to digest straight away. ]

You don't look like much of a fighter. Especially if your abilities are healing and ... 'making life.' [ he can't help sounding skeptical, but at least he's not openly judgmental. tanaka looks away, looking over the gathering of people. the possibility of everyone here having something freaky and different about them is slightly mind-boggling. ] But if you are, maybe you can take out those things. Sound eaters.

[tropism]

[ he raises an eyebrow. ]

You don't look like much either! If I hadn't heard you talking to yourself earlier, or had met you in a street corner not knowing who you are, I probably wouldn't even care if you exist. [ oh. ]

As for that, who knows? I know what my abilities are and I know what I'm capable of, but that's providing being here hasn't altered them in one way or another. And there are many different ways a battle can go. I'm strong, but I don't mind working with others to destroy a common enemy.

Taking on something like this by myself - that's absurd. [ he glances at the natives with a keen eye. ] That being said, I am sympathetic to their troubles, but my main concern is going back home.

[subject002]

[ there's a quiet click of the tongue at that arrogant answer and tanaka slouches back in his chair. first that nagai kid, and now this one. why does he keep running into these sorts of shitty, lippy brats. ]

You think you're so special? Doubt anyone's happy to be stuck here.

[tropism]

Yes, I believe I am. Why is that so difficult to understand?

And yes, I know people are confused and upset right now. I'm just saying I've got priorities. [ he peers at him. ] Do you want to go home? Is that an option for you still? Do you have a home you would consider going back to?

I do. And people are waiting for me there, because I'm important to them. Regardless of what I have to do in here to survive - whether that be to fight or lend my strength to someone else - I will never forget that at all.