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

:3c

[gimmesometassel]

[A native gives Tuan a warning look for the sound; Carpet, though, just tilts his top end curiously.]

I don't know, I've never named anything before. How do you do it?

Being surrounded by people just like you and not belonging with them sounds even lonelier. Why don't you relate to them?

[infodumped]

[Her brow furrows; the natives are never going to let her leave the room at this rate, are they? She mimes zipping her mouth in a placatory gesture to them, then begins to type.]

Carefully. Names are important. A lot of parents name their children after important figures in the hopes that they may grow up to be just as influential. Like a wish, maybe....


[There's a small pause before she addresses the other question. Not that it's hard to conceptualize why she doesn't get along with other people, it's just not something she's ever had to explain to anyone.]

It's because people don't see what's wrong with our way of life.
People are taught that their bodies don't belong to them. Society owns your body so people have to always be kind to others otherwise they're neglecting or damaging a precious resource.
And if you're not being kind, you're not contributing to a healthy society so you can't ever say how you really feel.
I just want to be myself... you know?

[gimmesometassel]

[Carpet scratches his head thoughtfully, considering. A wish..... what would Master have wished for him.....? (Would he even have thought about it at all? If he had thought about it, had he fulfilled that wish for him, in the end?)

Carpet is distracted from that unanswerable musing by Tuan's explanation; he droops in confused displeasure.]

People should be nice to each other because they like each other and it makes them happy, not just because they're useful or a thing someone owns. It doesn't sound like you have a master, so you should be able to act how you want.

[Maybe it's a sliiightly off-kilter opinion, coming from someone who's honestly pretty close to being a useful thing himself, and who's used to having a master to tell him what to do. A master might have a right to tell people how to act towards each other and be obeyed, but a ruler? That seems a little excessive for a whole society that's too big to govern directly, especially when it's entirely the wrong motivation for being nice! That's a false and hollow kindness, not one that comes from the heart. Why would you teach people that instead of just teaching them to love each other?]

[infodumped]

[For a moment, she's stunned into more silence. It's a concept that seems to elude most people within Admedistrative society, but hearing (well, reading) it stated as though how she feels is the most obvious thing in the world is unexpectedly comforting.]

Right?? When things like that are owed to other people, it stops meaning anything important.

[She kneels down on the floor across from Carpet, her expression a little brighter than it was before.]

So you have a master then? Do they treat you well?
Wait.
How come your Master didn't give you a name?

[gimmesometassel]

[Carpet nods firmly at that; as much as he strives to be useful to people--as much as he feels the pressing need to do so woven right into the fabric of his being--, he hopes that his friends would like him for more than just what he can do for them. Maybe a long time ago, he would have been satisfied with that, and thought Lifeism made perfect sense--but now? He wants more. He doesn't ask for much, doesn't even expect to be treated the same way someone would a human, but he does want to be treated like a real friend.]

I used to have masters, but I don't anymore. I guess the first one didn't need to name me because he never needed to call for me? I was always right by his side.

[(Rightfully) Paranoid as the man had been, they were almost never parted for long. Whenever Master had needed him, he had only to beckon.]

[infodumped]

[She frowns slightly. No matter how true that may have been, she doesn't like the sound of a life of "hey you's"
and having your existence taken for granted in that extreme. Even pets have names and Carpet clearly is more than just a pet. Tuan may not have known Carpet for long, but she has decided this is so.]

That's an awful reason not to give you a name!
But I guess this just means you have the freedom to name yourself after anything you want. A wish for yourself - do you have something like that?

[gimmesometassel]

[Another moment of silent consideration, as Carpet tilts his head thoughtfully. A wish for himself..... What would he wish for, if Genie could have granted him wishes, too?]

Genie is free, Aladdin and Jasmine are happy together, and I get to live with them in the palace. I can even talk to people with this thing now that I'm here! What else could I want?

[infodumped]

[Well that gives Tuan an idea.]

It sounds like your wish might be being able to take that device back home with you.

[But how to translate that concept into a name....]

If you could only say one word to your friends at home, what would that be?

[gimmesometassel]

[That..... sounds nice, actually. He likes the sound of that wish! Being able to talk to each other would definitely bring them closer together, right? Tuan's question, though, is a little hard to grasp; Carpet tilts his head in confusion. What's the point of something so limited? The only time a single word might be useful is if it's a warning, like urging them to duck or run.]

Saying one word by itself wouldn't mean anything.