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

[inhairently]

Steve makes a tch sort of sound that almost sounds amused, but not quite. "It was one hell of an introduction to this shit," he says. "I can tell you that much."

That had really been Steve's first time meeting Peter. The raft had managed to flip Steve's first impression (that Mr. Starr looked way older than he was and was generally not a cool dude) entirely, leaving him looking up to Peter in a way that he didn't really anyone else. Not here, not at home.

He squints out at the horizon, quiet in contemplation. "Is this where he's from?" he asks, after a moment. He'd never actually talked to Peter about either of their homes, but Steve can piece together context clues.

[decohere]

"Not entirely," she says quietly. "His home was in London. Worked for the British Intelligence. And when he resigned... he was captured, taken here. Interrogated and tortured in various ways for a year, by this Number 2 and all the others that shared the title. Every plan to escape failed. But they never broke him." She offers Steve a strained smile. She's proud of her husband. She's also terrified for him.

"This is where he first tried to escape on a raft. They let him believe so. Made it all the way to London before they dragged him back."

[inhairently]

"Jesus," Steve breathes. "That's — shit."

He's quiet again, still staring out at the horizon as he turns her words over and over in his head. It's not as if this place didn't already have an incredibly threatening undertone wrapped up in its quaint little buildings and goofy outfits and terrible music. No, Steve had been on edge since the moment they'd all woken up here.

But to hear Ava explain it, the reality of it... he can't imagine how horrible it must be for Peter to be here at all.

"I want to help find him," he says at last. "Whatever I can do, I'll do it."

[decohere]

"He was supposed to be the one that came up with a plan," Ava sighs out. "Not just because of his familiarity with the place and the man running it. But. I thought it'd... help, you know? If we faced this together, he'd finally be able to conquer it. And then he'd truly be free."

And instead her husband is being held hostage, and all she has is fragments of foolish plans with no direction on how to execute them. "But I think coordinated distractions would help..."

[inhairently]

Steve perks up at the mention of coordinated distractions. "That's exactly what I was thinking," he says. "We make enough noise, what the hell are they gonna do? They can't come after all of us."

That's the idea, anyway. There are a lot of strange people in this village, and a lot of those scary balloon things. It's quite possible that the village can come after all of them.

But they have to try.

"Whatever I can do to help, I'll do it," he goes on. His gaze drops to the sand, and he idly sifts his fingers through it. "Smi— Peter, he's... Well. You know."

She married him, after all. Of course she knows, which saves Steve from having to actually say "he's always kind of reminded me of my dad if my dad cared about people."

[decohere]

"Distraction doesn't do much good, unless there's an actual... plan to execute during. And a plan requires information. Which..." Ava sighs out helplessly. She has nothing to work off, not yet. How do you go snooping around when there's cameras capturing every angle?

"He's the best man I've ever known," Ava says sadly. "I know... I know some people think that I. I." Took that from him. Compromised his morals and ruined Peter's crusade for freedom by dragging him down a path of complacency, dallying with the enemy. Sometimes she worries they're right.