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

[be_seeing_you]

"One of the Number 2s did have a black cat, in fact." But that was an outlier.

"I've no idea which one we'll be dealing with yet. I suppose I'll find out at breakfast."

[makesomedeals]

"So that's more a title than a name? And rotating out periodically?" What he's piecing together of this place as the prison that Peter described is making him disgruntled.

"Do the numbers have some significance?" He says knowing full well what the 76 on his lapel is for.

[be_seeing_you]

"Yes, although it is the only name you will learn. Everyone is assigned a number. I do not know if they are of any significance. The number six held no meaning to me until I was forced to bear it here."

[makesomedeals]

"This may be a ridiculous question but why?" He gestures around, "To any of this, not just the numbers. Is there a point to any of this? A reason?"

[be_seeing_you]

"The first Number 2 tried to tell me I could live here peacefully if only I would submit. Grand promises of comfort were made. But nothing about this place is comfortable. Personally, I believe it was always intended to disorient."

[makesomedeals]

"Promises of comfort for what reason though? Say everyone agrees to live happily ever after, what does that get those who created this place? No one does things without a purpose."

[be_seeing_you]

"I was an operative with some of the highest clearance it was possible to obtain in my position. I knew secrets that could alter the course of world history if used the right or wrong way. They suspected I might have chosen to sell what I knew to the other side, so they put me in a gilded cage to make sure I couldn't." He was never going to. He told them that until he was blue in the face, but they refused to believe him.

"There were engineers, mathematicians, war generals, other spies, and more. The one thing we all shared was that we knew something that could be valuable. We were there to have that knowledge extracted and safeguarded. Or, so they claimed."

[makesomedeals]

He processes that for a moment, trying to understand before continuing slowly, "So they couldn't simply kill you to protect the information because they also needed it - and were trying to get it form you under the pretense of helping the world in general."

That makes a certain amount of sense, though this seems like such an odd and roundabout way of torturing someone that it has to be for someone else's enjoyment.

"Did anyone give up their information? And if so what happened to them?"

[be_seeing_you]

"They needed it, and, in their minds, they needed to know who I may have sold it to. Never mind that I didn't. If there was a chance, they were determined to get it from me." They wouldn't believe him no matter how many times he said it.

"Most gave up their secrets immediately. Some held out for a while but, in the end, The Village got what it wanted from them. Some of them became active wardens, working for The Village as a way to improve their situation. Escape was impossible, so they chose to submit."

[makesomedeals]

"It seems like all they'd get would be lies - people will say anything to save themselves." But the more he mulls this over, the less sense it really makes. Maximilien absolutely believes that knowledge is power, but this is just so much effort for information. The return on investment would be minuscule.

"A lose lose situation - those are the worst."

[be_seeing_you]

"The Village has detailed files of information on every one of their victims. They have complete biographies, the means to suss out what might be a lie and to corroborate it. Perhaps that is why they went to such great lengths to show all their prisoners how much they knew of them. To make sure they wouldn't be as inclined to lie."

He nods, faintly annoyed to be agreeing with Maximilien about anything. "It was. And now I am back again. I intend to make them sorry they brought me here."

[makesomedeals]

"I can already tell that I'll hate this place." Even more so than the fashion, but he's not going to go that far into admitting that Peter might be right about something. It's too soon for that.

"I look forward to it." He gives a polite nod by way of leaving, silently hoping that Peter just murders whoever is in charge here and they wind up back on the boat, and he can put on appropriate clothing again.