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

[toomuchridgewood]

[ Aloy wishes she had her own armor. She feels exposed in this jumpsuit. She reminds herself that being visible isn't the problem. It's being heard, which is a big difference.

They reach the copse without incident, and Aloy starts examining the underbrush, looking for fallen branches that would form staff. Not too gnarled, or bent. Sold but not wet. If she's lucky, there might be one branch that will work. She doesn't expect to find two.

Luck is with her today, and she finds a branch that's about four feet long, six inches in diameter, give or take. She lifts it up to her companion, lifting her eyebrows and holding it out to her.

It needs work. It needs to be shaped and polished, and it needs a grip and a blade. But it's a start. ]

[steal]

[The jumpsuit feels heavy compared to the light fabrics that Rey normally wears, and she can't say that she enjoys it. As soon as she insists that her clothes are quiet as they are, she's getting right back into them. For now, she has to suffer through the way she feels restricted and confined when she moves, which makes her a little more surly than normal. Still, when the branch is offered to her she manages a smile and a little nod of her head.

She takes hold of it and looks it over, stepping back so she can give it a test swing or two. There's restraint behind her motions, careful to not cause any sounds as it moves through the air. It definitely needs some work. But it'll do, until she gets her staff back.

Thank you, she mouths, then looks around to see if there's another laying somewhere close by.]

[toomuchridgewood]

[ Something seems to be bothering the other woman, but whatever it is they don't really have a way to talk about it. Aloy, for her part, is currently most concerned with finding herself a suitable branch for her own staff.

She looks up and sees that the lower limbs of the trees look sturdy enough. So she jumps up and grabs one, then pulls herself up onto it. Balancing on the limb, she looks around for another, higher up, to climb to.

Maybe this isn't the best way to find the kind of branch she needs, but it feels good to climb something again. ]

[steal]

[Rey looks surprised for a second when Aloy jumps up. Then she just grins and eagerly hurries to set her new branch staff aside safely. They can't very well both be on the same branches, but there's some nearby that's easy for Rey to jump up and grab as well. Tree climbing isn't really something she's ever done since trees on Jakku aren't a thing, but it's easy enough to do.

This tree is tall, and she's hoping that if they get high enough she can maybe catch sight of something interesting or useful.]

[toomuchridgewood]

[ Whatever dead wood has fallen off of these trees will still be there once she climbs down. For now, she wants to keep going up. And since her companion seems to be thinking the same thing, she keeps going up.

The branches get thinner as she goes up, so she sidles closer to the trunk.

And eyes up the trees around the one she's on. She could probably make the jump. And those things always work better the less you think about them, so she does. A few quick steps away from the trunk, springing off the branch just as it starts to creak threateningly, and launching herself across the gap. ]

[steal]

[Wow.

Okay, she can do this. She can do this. She can.

It's not that she's not physically capable of it, but she's never leapt from tree branch to tree branch before. So she takes a moment and focuses, judging the distance cautiously. And then she takes a leap of faith, relying a little too much on the force to help guide her. She makes it, but ends up gripping hold of the branch above her head a little too tight, scraping her palm in the process.

It's not paid any attention to, and is simply wiped off on the gross jumpsuit she doesn't care for. With a smile in Aloy's direction she nods, signaling that they should keep going. These branches don't seem like they'll hold for long, anyway.]

[toomuchridgewood]

[ The way Rey moves, it doesn't seem like she's as used to this kind of thing as Aloy is. She smiles encouragingly at her, though. It's good to try new things.

The tree they're in now is at the edge of the copse, so Aloy shimmies up the trunk as high as the branches will support her weight. Well, as high as she's willing to trust them, anyway. The trees here are so much smaller than she's used to. Maybe there are bigger ones in the forest.

She peers through the branches and over the landscape. There seems to be some kind of river down the hill. And lots of ruins. ]

[steal]

[When Rey gets up high enough, she feels a little off balance. Her new friend seems to manage much better than she does, though she doesn't think on it too much. This is just something she needs to practice is all. But all thought of actually taking the time to practice is forgotten as she looks out and spots the ruins.

Ruins, she can do. They're what she does best, actually. She points over toward them, giving Aloy an excited grin. She's going there, one way or another.]

[toomuchridgewood]

[ The ruins are intensely interesting to Aloy. The architecture is notably different than what she knows of the Old Ones. Come to think of it, this place is very different in all respects. And not just because of the Sound Eaters. The weather is much milder. The forest is much smaller, not just the trees themselves. And there are no mountains at all.

She didn't feel homesick when she left the Sacred Lands. Other than Rost, there was never much love lost between herself and where she was born. She feels homesick now. This place is so different, and so far away, she might as well be on another planet.

She looks at her new silent friend, not really managing a smile. ]

[steal]

[Jakku is a shithole, but Rey finds herself missing it sometimes. Or rather, she misses the painfully nostalgic time when she thought her parents might actually come back for her. Things had been so simple back then. Now everything is complicated in ways she doesn't fully comprehend.

It's enough to make her own smile fade away, particularly when she sees that her friend is lacking one. Awkward with emotions on a good day, she just reaches over to lightly touch at Aloy's shoulder. It's a stretch with how far apart they're standing, but she manages.

Even if they hardly know one another, Rey is here. They're not alone, no matter how far from home they may be.]