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

[ghostfluster]

yes sure. just fire me a text when you want to try it out? it's kind of hard to sit around here anyway, all the quiet's spookier in a big empty room. id rather make something

[she's gonna bug him to let her help let's be real]

you can say that again. im missing the shelter dogs already. a plant's not the same but at least it's alive and doesn't bark

[priwen]

[ A short while laterr ]

Where are you now? I think it'd be more fun if we can be in person rather than writing.

[ghostfluster]

ehhh we'll still be doing some writing! but you have a point

im out on the porch at house 9. you want to meet halfway?

[priwen]

[ There is a bonus to being in person, though - watching the other's expressions and gestures. He's used to conducting socialization with the Echo in place, too. ]

I can come. My house is sparse, I'm afraid.

[ghostfluster]

mine too haha

but it's nice to sit out for a while

sure come over? you want some peaches or something?

[even in silent hell some caretaking habits are hard to break, and offering food is one of them]

[priwen]

[ Food is a unifying force, it's true. ]

I have some bread, we can share.

I'll come then?

[ She should be able to see him from practically a mile away, he's so tall... ]

[ghostfluster]

sure i guess ill see you coming? look for the girl in the light blue jumpsuit haha

[priwen]

Alright.

I'm quite tall, you should be able to see me from a long way away. My clothes are green.

[ True to his word, he would leave immediately and make his way towards her residence. He's only able to stand up straight outside, a man seven feet tall with pale skin and faded scars where his jumpsuit doesn't cover. Once he comes closer, it would also stand out that he has odd eyes - golden on the right side, and a clouded grey on the left. A scar leads up to his left eye.

Once he can be sure that he's got the right person, he'll give Rosa a slight wave. ]

[ghostfluster]

[holy shit he kind of looks like armgolas from lord of the necklaces

her mouth might be hanging open a little

...she remembers to wave back after a long awkward staring silence though

whoa!!!]

[priwen]

[ Alex is used to being stared at, especially in places with very little Elezen or just because his reputation tends to precede him. As a result he returns her stare with a slight smile.

Though it seems he'll have to type first to dissipate the awkwardness around them, so he dies - typing with one finger. ]

Hello. What's your name?

[ghostfluster]

osa

i mean rosa i'ts ROSA

oh wow i feel like i totally did this whole meeting someon thing backwards just now

its nice to meet you!!

[priwen]

[ is there anything he can do to help her calm down other than just STANDING HERE AND SMILING AWKWARDLY ]

It's okay.

My name is Alexandre, but you can call me Alex if you'd like. [ And people pronounce his full name wrongly sometimes... ] Maybe it would be easier if I sat down somewhere?

[ Looking up all the time can't be comfortable, can it ]

[ghostfluster]

[that probably would help; she's pretty short even for a human, let's be real

she gestures to the porch, though; it's not like she could drag the couch in her room out here, so she grabbed the cushions off it instead and plunked them down. there is also, in fact, a jar of peaches]

you;ll have to tell me how to pronounce it when we can talk talk? but yeah come sit wow

[priwen]

[ Alex has his bread in a cloth bag - plastic makes too much noise, and likely doesn't exist here anyway.

He'll take his seat, upon which it becomes slightly apparent that Elezen are practically 60% leg. ]

I've noticed that most people here are humans. Is it common to only have humans in your world?

[ghostfluster]

[she does appreciate him being more at eye level now; they can share out the food easily enough. she wonders if she used to have people over a lot, in her previous life; Jan doesn't really call other friends over to their apartment back home, but the rhythm of a casual house visit still feels...normal.]

pretty much just those yeah

[well, there are ghosts, and perhaps there are others like her, but they all started out as humans, so she refuses not to count them under that umbrella.]

i think yuou'll get less stares on the whole than the magic carpet guy though

[priwen]

[ It's the closest they have to normality in this silent place; he's come to realize the quiet suffocates some people. It's also much harder to discern the tone of a person merely through writing, another roadblock for him. Thus his preference to meet in person, where the Echo lets him perceive the emotions of those around him. ]

There's an enchanted carpet?

[ He hasn't seen Carpet. However, the concept of one isn't alien at all. Mammets and fairies were common in his world. ]

[ghostfluster]

yeah his toy ball or something got stuck in my hair but he was rela nice about it

a lot of people here are friendly even if they're not what i'm usedto

you dont look that surprised?

[priwen]

[ frowns a little, thoughtfully: ]

Enchanted objects aren't out of the ordinary where I come from. They need a lot of cants to bind them, but some gifted scholars do use them.

[ghostfluster]

ok but this one definitely talked

well typed

but you know

is that common too

i don't know whenther to be more confused about this whole being in a silent horror city in france thing or the fact that magical people from different worlds came in too

like

magical horror feels like is should be more

...magic?

sorry i think im rambling

[priwen]

[ She types like how she would speak, which makes it easier for him to understand. ]

Not exactly, but their world could be more advanced than ours. Maybe carpets there can have this kind of ability.

I have noticed that the aether, or magic of this world is very thin. Perhaps the reason we were brought here isn't magic at all?

[ these are good questions and he's encouraging them ]

You're not rambling at all. [ Carry on my young ghost (?) ]

[ghostfluster]

[is she a ghost? what is she? why is everything his Echo picks up from her so dark and samey? any glimpses he gets of her in her past memories, if he gets those, are strange. where one would see her hand reaching out for something or perhaps her knees if she sat down, there are curlingtentacles; claws of bone poking from a sleeve of ragged feathers; a glimpsed cluster of slitted gold eyes.

(why the hell is she wondering aloud about magic with that in her background, also)]

jan points out everything lookse pretty current, like what were used to, but old

and im not very up on my tech and sciences but we definitely havent broken time and space enough to invent this kind of teleportng yet. especially not like this

[shakes her head, hard enough to make her hair fly a bit]

still feel like im dreaming. SOMETHING is definitely dbroken here though.

[priwen]

[ Alex cannot tell when the Echo will strike him (and it has not yet), but being in her presence tells him that she's someone exceptional. While she looks human, she gives him the impression of a song - soft yet dark, with timbre much like his vision of the Calamity.

Mysterious, but not too disturbing. Alex is a man who has seen a lot of things, so he'll file it away as curiosity and take the rest in stride. ]

I feel the same too. A fragment is missing from this world.

It might be sourced from the Sound Eaters, whatever they are.

[ghostfluster]

[thoughtfully]

missing?

maybe someone tore open a door.

[priwen]

[ On hindsight, it makes sense. Just like the Voidsent, who flood into Hydaelyn from another dimension; a likely cause. ]

I am somewhat attuned to magic, or the flow of aether in a place. There's nothing here at all.

With this sort of feeling, a place in my home would be completely dead.

This place doesn't seem to have any native magic, so maybe my guess is wrong - but that's my perception right now.

[ghostfluster]

[her typing is slower, more thoughtful; more careful, as she thinks that over]

i don't think i've seen magic. or not the same kind you're talking about. so i think it might just be a difference there

but not everything strange and inexplicable is magic necessarily either

not even the room we woke up in feels different to you? i keep thinking, maybe thats the key place