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

[myagic]

Sotoba...that place...

[If that didn't give it away, the slight downcast to her eyes and thinning of her lips shows that she remembers it, too--the dark room, the open window, and what she remembers most of all...Natsuno in the bed, pale and weak and barely clinging to life.

...She doesn't ask him if he's alright with staying there. He's been through worse. But that doesn't mean she won't think it's unfair all the same.]

Oh, yeah, that's right... [Thinking about her fake house is better than thinking about him dying.] Actually, I stopped living in that house not long after that memory you saw. I was granted my own place when I became a mage, so...the one here is modelled after that one.

I can't believe this guy had all the time to even recreate the books...

[neverleave]

Are you sure they're really books, or just the covers with empty pages inside?

[Even without setting foot inside, Natsuno knows Rita's house must have had stacks upon stacks of books. Creating the Yuuki-Koide residence is nothing compared to a genius mage's home.]

...can I see it? Only if you want. Even if it's meant to be cruel, we can make a nice memory instead.

[myagic]

Yeah, I checked a couple. They actually were, believe it or not.

[A nice memory--she blinks, then can't help but give him a soft little smile. Natsuno...he's always so sweet. And here she should've thought of that for him.]

...Sure, come on. The original- [because she's going to maintain that distinction, it's not the same house] -was where I met Estelle, I guess, so--it's not like it was a bad place or anything.

...And...if you want the same for your place, too...

[Because he not only had bad memories in his house, he died there.]

[neverleave]

[He picks up the chair in one hand and takes Rita's hand with the other.]

Estelle... right, they broke into your house.

[Estelle had healed Rita soon after, if he remembers correctly. That's how Rita realized how special she was - first her magic, then everything else.]

You can visit the one I got, too. [It's not "his place," just a copy.] It's not much though.

[myagic]

Yeah, that's right.

[She clasps his hand tight, starts leading him in the direction of her assigned house. It's funny, the unexpected ways her friendships have started. Breaking into a house. Getting kidnapped together. If only they didn't end even more suddenly...

Would Clarke, or Jade, or some of the others...still be here if they'd gone on one of these sacrificial excursions earlier? She doesn't ask, because he doesn't have an answer, and she's not sure she'd want to know.]

...It's modelled after the one I saw in your memory, right? Everything's the same?

[neverleave]

Pretty much. It's the same bedroom I had, and the living room. It even comes with my old homework, like I'll come back to it any minute now. Only difference is that it has Tohru-chan's video game console. [As well as Jade's mug and Clarke's stuff, but he hid those in a cupboard right away.] Which is stupid, because we always played at his place.

[myagic]

[It's not hard to guess why it must be there--to mess with Natsuno. She can't help the irritated expression that clouds her face.]

Hmph...they're not very subtle, are they?

[They're nearing the place she woke up: yet another cottage that fits in with most of the others in its exterior style, aside from being oddly tall and narrow.]

[neverleave]

They got this realm from the captain. They probably don't know what subtle means.

[It's a bit odd to see the narrow house among the rows of shorter cottages. Natsuno chuckles at the "keep out" sign - classic Rita - but the laughter turns into a surprised oh when they enter.

Compared to his minimalistic cottage and the tidy village, Rita's fake place is chaotic. Natsuno spends enough time in her cabin to know she's messy, but she can do so much worse with extra space and books. So many books.]

...does it always come with a crystal stuck in the middle?

[myagic]

[Rita has never once in her life felt in any way ashamed of her "organization" skills. It's served her just fine, thank you, and she can choose to do whatever she wants in the space she's occupying!! Except. Something about bringing her far-less-chaotic (though not Jade-meticulous) boyfriend over suddenly has her thinking--oh, no, maybe she should've at least shoved the books towards the walls?? Or--something...

Her face goes red as she steps in behind him and shuts the door.]

I mean--the original one was built that way. And...it's a mineral useful for research, so I could just chip some off if I needed it...

[She clears her throat awkwardly.]

Anyway--I can make some tea, if I find the ingredients...

[neverleave]

[She's embarrassed and it's adorable, but Natsuno is being a gentleman and pretends not to notice.]

Yes, please.

[He does hope the house was created with clean mugs, though. While Rita is searching for the tea he approaches the crystal to get a better look.]

That's convenient. Is this how blastia look before you process them?

[myagic]

[He's incredibly sweet as always, and if the place looks just a tad less chaotic next time he comes over, well--it's just a coincidence, surely. Now comes the trouble of trying to remember where things even were in here, a place she hasn't been in a good two years... She starts shuffling through shelves and book piles as she answers.]

No, not exactly... They do resemble crystals, but they're--hm, if I had to describe them...they're luminescent. It's not just that they reflect light, but it's like it shines right from the centre. I've only seen them a few times, since they're...

[She pauses, straightening up with a thoughtful look towards him.]

Actually, I never told you where they actually come from, did I?

[neverleave]

No. I just know that Theodora is different than Wilhelm.

[He sits by a less cluttered piece of table. Rita is welcome to tell him all about blastia; Natsuno enjoys listening to her talk about magic, to see the passion in her eyes and think, she's such a genius and I love her.]

[myagic]

Right...well...

[She resumes shuffling through shelves as she gathers her thoughts and starts explaining.]

Blastia cores are derived from apatheia, which are...solid, incredibly dense masses of aer. They're so dense I thought they could never realistically exist, but it turned out they do.

[She peeks behind a book pile, and--there they are, tea leaves...she's pretty sure. She returns to the table so they can start preparing tea. With this particular subject, her voice is softer than usual compared to when she would normally talk about magic and blastia. This is clearly not something she's proud of.]

There's a race of creatures in my world called Entelexeia--I thought they were monsters when I first saw them, but they were actually totally different. They're capable of ingesting aer, which they did to regulate the balance of aer around the planet. And...when one dies, all that aer they'd taken in over hundreds, maybe thousands of years...would leave behind an apatheia. And the ancients figured out how to use and process them into blastia cores...

[She can't argue that they had a pretty good reason to hate blastia.]

[neverleave]

[While Rita gets the tea, he grabs a pair of clean mugs. Natsuno is surprised to see her so sombre. He was expecting a long lecture, but now she's reluctant to talk about it. His expression softens to match her tone and he gives her his umdivided attention.]

So... the ancients killed them to create blastia?

[myagic]

Yeah, seems so.

[She lets the water heat on a hot plate, while she reaches for an old blastia core on the desk, cracked and broken and nonfunctional, and gently rubs her thumb over it. Even if it is just a recreation of the original.]

Then the blastia were buried because they endangered the world, but all that knowledge was lost to most people over such a long time... All we knew was that the ancients invented blastia. We never could've imagined...

[She shakes her head. Who could've possibly imagined something so messed up was the secret behind blastia? But macabre or not, it is the truth.]

In a way, it makes it even sadder that they were abandoned for so long. They should at least be looked after--given some kind of proper rest.

[neverleave]

[He watches her stroke the blastia core like she can somehow comfort it, like it's not a replica of something long dead. Rita loves blastia like she loves her friends - it must've been painful for her to learn the truth about them. To know that not only they came from those dead Entelexeia, her research and use of blastia put the world in danger.]

I'm sure you're working on it. The you back home.

[myagic]

Yeah...I know that's the case. Since she is me and all.

[It's a little wry, but she did come to terms with that what feels like forever ago, now. The Rita back in her world will stop at nothing to find an answer, to save Estelle and the world. She sets the core back down on the desk and gives Natsuno a little smile.]

Anyway...thanks. I still like blastia, since, you know... [They were always there and all.] But I don't like that they were made through anyone's sacrifice, either.

[neverleave]

I know. [She could never stand for that.] But what's done is done. You shouldn't feel bad for something you had no way of knowing.

[...]

You should take the ones here back to the ship. Even if they're just copies.

[myagic]

[She blinks, looks at him in surprise, and then--nods.]

I hadn't thought of that... But...yeah. They don't deserve to just get left here and abandoned.

[Natsuno...always so sweet. She knows these moments aren't going to last, but she pours his cup of tea with a soft smile, anyway. At least they can have this moment together.]