Welcome To The Village

[number_2]

Who: Everyone who was signed-up for the excursion
What: The Village December Excursion
When: Dec 1st - Dec 23rd
Where: The Village
Warnings: Involuntary capture and confinement including immobilization and restraints, violence, injury, maiming, possibility of death, torture, coercion, gaslighting, mind control, drugging, scientific experiments, and extremely inaccurate depictions of mental health facilities/hospitals, among other potentially triggering themes. Please mark all threads appropriately.




"Good morning, good morning, good morning!" A voice that sounds very similar to Friday's chirps over a loudspeaker outside your character's home. Yes, their home.

Overnight, all the passengers who signed up for this excursion have been transported to their very own personal cottages. They will awake in a bed that is familiar to them. While this home of theirs does not necessarily have to resemble the place they were born or raised, it will be a perfect replica of a place they truly thought of as their home, down to the most minute details.

The cottages are self-contained, the size of a large studio apartment so, in some cases, they may only resemble the bedroom and living room of a person's home with a shrunken-down kitchenette and bathroom adjoined. But the heirlooms of their past are here. A favorite doll? A treasured family portrait? Trinkets you have long forgotten about? All of them will be here, somehow. (All except for weapons, that is.) They are indistinguishable from the real item, down to the molecule.

After that wake-up call, the voice continues on to express that the weather will be warm and sunny, with no rain forecasted. A brass band concert is announced, to start at noon on the lawn next to the living chess set. And once that bit of news is wrapped up, lively marching band music will begin to play. And it will continue to play. All day. From every speaker...including the ones hidden in their home.

Welcome to Your Village

It only gets stranger from here. Characters may be dismayed to find that they are without any of their original clothes or belongings. They awake in conservative button-up pajamas. The closet in their home is full of the latest Village Fashion to choose from. Everything is The Village label brand, including the tin cans of food that stock the kitchen and any of the groceries you could get at the General Store.

Your ship phone rings. When you answer it, you will be greeted, once again, by the voice of Friday. "Your number, please? Of course, you have a number. Look at your badge." If they look down at their chest, they will discover a small round number badge has been pinned to their pajamas. Was that there before? It bears the symbol of a Penny-farthing Bicycle, with a number in the spokes. This is their number.

"No names here," the voice of Friday chides, "Only numbers. Number 2 would like a word with you at the Green Dome. He requests you come for breakfast. Thank you!" Before they can protest further, the line goes dead.


Some Notes:

No matter how many times your character tries to take off and disregard their number badge, they will always find it re-attached to their clothes again the moment they look away and look back.

Your characters still have their phones but now they can only make calls instead of sending texts. They also do not take or store photographs anymore.

If your character destroys or damages anything in their home, or in The Village it will instantly repair the way things used to on the Serena Eterna.

The noise from the speakers can be muffled by covering it with pillows or other creative items, but cannot be stopped entirely. (Sorry Phil)

Comments

[goodweather]

(If he had a plan, Darcy can tell by his eyes that it's all gone out the window in the face of sheer panic.)

Phil stands up properly then, a little suddenly. He moves forward ahead of Darcy, putting them behind. "I think," he says carefully, "that you misunderstand, sir. I'm the one who brought us here." He finds 2's gaze for a heavy moment, sternly held. "He listens to me; if you want us out of here, he won't come to the Dome again."

[decohere]

Twice now he's avoiding acknowledging the matter of hurting her husband, and so it only allows her to believe that he's had by omission.

But she doesn't allow herself to focus on that, all the time he's had over these last days to freely enact whatever forms of torture his sick mind has conjured.

She doesn't allow herself to think of it, because it's a distraction from concentrating on the direction she's being led. The slope of the path, the changes in direction, the surface under her feet. Any pauses for doors. She counts each step, commits it all to memory so that she may try to map the location out later. She'll need an actual map to draw out her estimations, but...

That's for later. Because her blindfold is removed and she's finally in the presence of her husband, it's only later that she takes in any details of the room itself. "Peter," Ava calls out, dismayed. Knowing he's out and can't hear her at all. No doubt drugged. Ava immediately tries to get out of the chair, though expecting to be held back from getting over to his side.

[abhorrently]

Heh. It was only a gentle poke into her sensibilities. Besides, she likes thinking that somewhere in the many worlds, Withers knew he was referred to as grandfather and scowled.

"A magician more powerful and subtle than I can possibly convey. But I also think he might have been kept there. He was a bit reluctant to talk about his past."

More like shutting them down entirely with that hollow eyed gaze.

[crushed_pearls]

Shadowy eyebrows raise into the squirming darkness of 44's hairline. "I'm listening, 17. Confused, but listening. Though...'tis the season I guess."

[redlightgreenlight]

If he expects her to be surprised, she isn’t. She opens the door, wearing nothing but a towel.

“Is that supposed to impress me, Kevin?”

[decohere]

Ava holds still, allows the nurse to clean up and disinfect the wound while making appropriately pained squirms and whimpers as it's patched up. It certainly stings. If there's an opportunity, she may try to swipe a badge. But she's not looking to risk it either. [17]

"I'm okay, I can... I can go home," Ava insists, to make sure it's not too obvious that she actually plans to stay overnight. To snoop. All of her mapping out of the possible locations that her husband might be held hostage based on the slope of the terrain, the number of steps from the Green Dome, points to here as the best guess. The slippery tile seems distinct enough.

[saltwaterlungs]

Phil steps in front, like he knew Phil would, but.

It's not going to be enough. The death threat on the assumption that Phil would back him up was an overreach, and now comes the punishment. That's how these places work. Break the rules in a substantial enough way and...

Darcy's manifestations have been largely turned off by whatever Number 2 has in place. The useful ones, anyway. But the odd, subtler magic that came to them in the waiting room of the Labyrinth still remains, unreliable as it is. He looks around the side of Phil's arm directly into 2's eyes, and Phil and the rest of the room begin to fall away from his sight.

"It was all me. You know it was. C'mon. Phil's too nice and sensible."

However scared he is, the idea of Phil going through- it's worse. Even imagining it is worse than whatever Number 2 could think of. Darcy will just have to abide through whatever comes.

[inhairently]

There won't be.

( In truth he knows it's not that simple. The tides can turn before you even realize you're in the water. )

But if there are, we deal with it.

[abhorrently]

Slowly, she walks forward ten paces.

"Power. A chance, for a few hours, to be the master instead of the servant."

She's taking a gamble. But between how much 44 seemed to chafe at her chains in the right light, and her specific invitations, Fever's willing to place this bet. If it plays out well enough, she'll even forego considering breaking 44's neck in the aftermath.

"To be in control, instead of controlled."

[number_2]

"Always ready with a witty comeback, aren't you? Does that make you feel braver?"

There comes a knock on the door. It opens and in comes that short butler with a tea cart. He rolls it to the table and sets out their tea and some muffins. The butler doesn't say a word but he does glance up and down at Gwen with obvious disapproval.

"Thank you, that will be all," Number 2 says, dismissing the man.

He mutely rolls the cart away, closing the door behind himself.

"Help yourself to a muffin," Number 2 tells her cordially as if she hadn't just insulted him and his Village. "It's blueberry."

[myagic]

Rita wants to say that there's nothing very subtle about someone who sleeps in a coffin, but she just raises an eyebrow with a little huff. "Kept, huh...? So...what, did you do something to release him?"

[thismaskismybadge]

[ There's a little more dubious squinting as Gwen tries to decide if this guy is for real or if he's just come up with the weirdest possible code-speak for something, before she's distracted by the way he's trying to look behind her. Yeah, that's fair. ]

Minor inconveniences are a great way to piss people off, I guess... [ big sigh, then answering unspoken questions like she's heard it all before: ] No, you're not seeing things, yes, my room looks like it's made of watercolours, my whole universe looked like that. No, I don't know how this place managed to recreate it. You wanna see?

[ Plausible excuse to get him inside so she can blast some music and find out why he actually wants bedsheets. ]

Village Hospitality | OTA

[stainedglass_stainedfaith]

A week and change into the new batch's stay here, a man starts sitting at a porch table outside of one of their cabins, every night at 8pm, all the way until curfew at 10. Dark beard and barely kempt hair, something close t 6's age, utterly normal. To those with an eye for changelings, however, he looked like he was pulled straight from a stained glass church window.

Number 46 (Okie, he thinks they called him) was inside, and he was supposed to make sure he stayed there.

"Hey there, nice to meet you," he'll call out to anyone that approaches. It's a practiced kind of politeness, not malicious, just tired. "I'm 78. If you're here to see 46, then I'm afraid you'll have to find him again in the morning. It's a bit old fashioned, but he's been grounded for sneaking out. If any old somebody would work for company, I've got drinks and an extra cup. Pink lemonade."

[thismaskismybadge]

We deal with it. Yeah.

I'm still willing to do my thing if the cover plan works. Just, fair warning, the guy up top definitely knows exactly what I can do. I wouldn't be surprised if they were prepared for every trick any of us could throw at them.

[ Is she kind of expecting motion sensors or electric shocks in the ceiling/walls? Yeah. ]

[number_2]

"Stop, 27," the Captain says sternly. "They aren't going to hurt you, they want to help you. I want to help you. That's why I volunteered to meet you here."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra is wholly docile in the hands of the attendants who bring her in after her humiliatingly brief scuffle with 44, and in the hands of whatever medical personnel come to treat her. Maybe it's the pain, or the uselessness of her injured arm; maybe she's just given up.

(Anything's possible.)

[not_the_last]

"She --" Cassandra grits out, and pushes herself up on her one good arm, tears and dirt streaking her face. "She's -- mine."

And sinks back down again, sobbing with the pain, by all indications unable to do anything else.

At least not before the mini-moke drives up, and two large muscular men get out to matter-of-factly bundle her into its back seat to take her away.

[decrypter]

There's a pause on the other side. Almost too long. And then:

"I'll be over as soon as I can. And do tell me I'm not the only one who's pitching in for you."

[number_2]

Wherever Helena is right now, she can feel eyes on the back of her neck. Somehow she just knows someone is watching. But, no matter how hard she questions or searches, she won't find the source. Eventually, the feeling goes away, but it may leave her unnerved for the day.

Just when she thinks there's nothing more to it, she will discover her home has been ransacked. For some reason, it hasn't repaired itself. Everything is a mess. A few things may be broken. But, the most concerning thing of all is the message written in black paint on her ceiling.

BE SEEING YOU

Guess someone else is going to have to tell her about that, though. Have fun cleaning up. Or don't. Good thing she still has that cane?

[not_the_last]

"Certainly not." Brisk, and again almost cheerful. "I've called several others as well. It seemed rather a big job to tackle on my own."

[thismaskismybadge]

Gwen pulls a face back at the butler, as if silently going 'yeah, and what of it?' before turning back to 2 as he leaves.

"Oh, dude, there are entire psych research papers you could write on the multiversal constant that is a Spider's sense of humour. But honestly? You're really not that scary."

All of this boldly said as she reaches to take a muffin, against any and all better judgement that she might still possess. She really hopes that the fact her Spider-sense hasn't triggered is because there's nothing to trigger it, but at this point there's really only one way to find out. Barrel ahead.

In this case, that does in fact mean trying the blueberry muffin from the weird creepy guy.

[decrypter]

It's all wrong. It's been taken apart. Somehow, she thinks it would have been easier if they simply had killed her. She stands in the house for a long few minutes, and then walks outside, clumsily seating herself on the ground.

Putting her face in her hands, she finds she can no longer care what it makes her look like. She has to simply weep.

[astrogator]

Tayrey stops.

It's not really a conscious decision so much as that when a Tradeline captain tells you to stop in that tone, you'd better stop. She runs the analysis. Did Erin talk to Captain Sinclair as she promised? Is that the reason that she suddenly seems markedly less confused, less fragile than she had before? If Erin talked to her about leaving this place, then-

Then there are two major possibilities. Erin accidentally scared her into doubling down on her compliance, to the point where she'd offer the young lieutenant up for torture instead of letting her walk out that door. Or Erin convinced her of another path, and this is all some plan that Tayrey needs to go along with. Maybe there's a very sound reason why walking out the door is a bad idea right now, she just can't say it.

Ari Tayrey is going to trust to Erin's capabilities and to Captain Sinclair's Tradeliner integrity. 'I hear you,' she says slowly. 'I know you want to help me.' And she knows the others don't, even if Sinclair doesn't consider it safe to say, so let that omission be noted. 'How are you going to help me now, Captain?'

[crushed_pearls]

"I'm no one's master," the words are hard, sharp, bitter, but 44 softens, breathes through her nose. Her hand runs down an arm scarred with defensive wounds...

No, not down it. Just above the skin, like she's used to touching something else.

Playfully, and yet, a little forced: "...But if you're offering to let me take care of you, those dangerous hands of yours do need cuffing. Just to be sure."

[not_the_last]

"Helena, it's Cassandra." The voice is very nearby; there's alarm in it, and concern. "What's happened?"