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

i am my father's son (week 2)

[goodweather]

Phil all but disappears for a day. For all of the first week he'd made himself very visible--checking in on Ava, hanging near Darcy, visiting Cass and what have you, rarely ever much inside the cramped cottage he'd been given--but there's a span of time where he's simply absent. He has been getting more involved with the orchestra lately, allegedly trying to poke into the Village's inner guts from that angle. (He hasn't found much. This arm of the Village seems perfectly decorational, according to him, and he doesn't like the maestro at all, a shrewd little man named Number 928.)

He's here now, though, poking his head through Darcy's window like a very large and very annoying bird while he’s making dinner.

"Hey, whatcha cookin', Darts?"

[saltwaterlungs]

Oh hey, there he is.

"Sugar."

He sort of nods to the pan illustratively.

"If you cook it high enough before it hits hard crack, it goes all like. Gross and sticky and shit. Max was telling me about it. I'm planning on tarring Kevin's door with it- you want to help?"

[goodweather]

"I would, but I think I've got a better idea."

He slips out of the window and lets himself in through the door, nosing his shoes off at the front. "I was thinking," he muses as he passes further in towards the kitchen, "that since I haven't found anything where I've been looking, and everybody else seems like they're got their noses to the floor..."

Phil gestures upwards. "Maybe, we can tar up his window instead?"

Break in. He means break in.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Perfect. He ehn, switched off my wall climbing shit."

Phil knows the one, what he used on the side of the Rover.

"I think it's almost hot enough. Grab me one of the couch cushions? The little stupid decorative ones, they have feathers in them."

[goodweather]

The rover, not to mention watching Darcy parkour up the side of the Atrium instead of using the elevators.

Annoyance flickers across his face. “Did he. Well, he didn’t turn off my wings.”

Phil does as he’s told, grabbing a couch cushion, piercing it with a talon so that the pathetically dull knives can catch into the fabric, before he tosses it his way.

[saltwaterlungs]

Well yeah. It's just faster. And more badass.

"Unlucky for you, ehn? Still can't get a break from them," and Darcy catches the pillow with one hand because he is still a jock in spite of everything. He tucks it under his arm for now, just for ease of transport. He can rip it open with his hands when they get there.

"Alright," he heaves the molten sugar off the stove, "get the door for me? This is, like, serious injury hot so be careful."

[goodweather]

“Got it.” Door pulled wide open, with Darcy given plenty of berth.

The trip is fairly straightforward. Darkness means he flies them both high up, hopefully out of range of any cameras and certainly beyond any nosy neighbors or mics. Phil still traces a path over where there’s less likely to be so much surveillance, and less cameras potentially pointed up.

They alight silently onto the roof of the Dome. From here it’s a matter of getting down to a windowsill. Phil gestures for Darcy down to where he knows one is.

[saltwaterlungs]

It would almost be nice. He sees goons knocking on his door back down at ground level, the lights on in everyone else's cottage. Keeping the sugar inside the pan is no easy feat but he manages it, doing his best to climb down carefully. It's a good thing he's not scared of heights.

A little awkwardly, he presses the rim of the pan to the window and pours, hoping the sugar is tacky enough by now to stick and not just spill onto him.

[goodweather]

Phil steps back, looking away towards the ground and any pathways leading up to where they are while Darcy wrecks up the big main window. Once the feathers are scattered, he fans the mess with a wing to make it really harden.

And then he steps off of the sill and onto the rim of the Dome, gesturing for Darcy to follow.

[saltwaterlungs]

Oh, they're- Darcy brings the pan with him, leaving it on the roof and follows Phil, climbing carefully. Just like home, having to sneak out and in windows and shit. Are they breaking in? That makes sense- nobody's seemed to see them at the moment, they could break in and see if there's anything worth stealing. Maybe even take a shot at 2 if he's asleep and not masturbating to watching security footage.

[goodweather]

They are. Phil fusses with the window for a moment, testing to see if it’s locked—it isn’t, much as the doors and windows of their own cottages aren’t. He prods it open carefully, making sure nothing’s in danger of squeaking or creaking, and slips in beyond the curtains without so much as a whisper.

[saltwaterlungs]

This feels way too easy.

Darcy's church-mouse quiet in after, having to half blink out phantom images of-

Not the dreams. Green eyes shining in the dark and carnivore's softness of foot, being part of something more, a one-two beat of prowl and patience, he always kept one step ahead with a hand on his gun just in case-

Darcy takes point, keeping close to the wall, watching for light and listening for noise. Its his wheelhouse, even after all this time.

[number_2]

Suddenly the light flicks on, bathing them and the room in brilliant light. There, in the doorway, is Number 2 in his robe holding a glass of milk.

"Number 69? Number 202? What are you doing in my private rooms at this hour?"

[goodweather]

It's taking so much effort not to laugh at that terrible robe. Not helping the name, there.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Sorry- is that milk? You run an evil surveillance village and you have a fucking glass of milk before bed? Like a fucking cartoon mouse? Do you sleep in a tin of sardines too?"

Sorry he just needs a moment.

"Anyway. We're definitely killing him now right."

[number_2]

"Now I know where they got it from, don't I?" He says noting how that answer has been given to him three times.

He glares at Darcy. "No, I sleep in a bed because that is what civilized people do. And I was heading to mine before you both decided to rudely impose yourselves."

His glares snaps over to Phil, "I thought we had a rapport, 202. I gave you a position with the orchestra. And this is how you repay me? With threats on my life?"

[goodweather]

Phil doesn't glance around. "Wh--n--hang on--"

He may have stuck his hands straight through Daisy's guts in a fit of abject panic, but Darcy, do consider the fact that your father has never actually murdered anyone yet. And besides--

(His Mantle isn't just cold, it's freezing--)

"We weren't going to. If you know know so much about us you know--we weren't going to. None of us can guarantee that the Village wouldn't just explode on us, and if that girl with the knife hands couldn't do it then there was no way I was going to."

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy's confidence drops the fuck out from under him as Phil does not in fact stick by him with a stupid idea that is guaranteed to not work. Something about this quiet inconvenienced anger is worse than if he had gone red and started spitting vitriol.

'If you know about us' may work for Phil, but it sure as shit doesn't work in Darcy's favour, and Darcy looks shallowly over his shoulder back at Phil, pleading and questioning as what the plan is. He did have a plan, right?

[number_2]

"You're right, 202" Number 2 says sternly. "There is a lot you do not know. I really thought you were smarter than to let this one's reckless impulsivity get the better of you. You were supposed to be a good influence. It seems the opposite is true."

He turns his cold gaze on Darcy, "I think we will have to attend to that."

[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."

[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.

[number_2]

"He listens to you, does he?" Number 2's eyes narrow on Phil. "He should be listening to me. Or does this mean you are volunteering to become his keeper?"

His gaze shifts to Darcy when he leans around and makes eye contact. Number 2's demeanor suddenly changes (Rolled 9).

"Much as it pains me to agree with you, Number 69, on this I do. You're the bad apple in this bunch. And it's time I took you to get juiced."

[goodweather]

Phil's wings snap out and block Darcy from view. Something falls back into place.

"The hell you are," Phil growls lowly, feeling a terrible absence in the middle of his head, the missing whisper, black liquid strength. He's not proud of the way he envisions 2 beneath his foot. He doesn't flinch from it either. Honestly, he should kill him for that terrible analogy alone.

A hooked talon is jabbed in 2's direction. "You, do whatever you want with me, but you leave him out of this. I won't roll over until you do--I swear to God, I'll kill you, or someone else will."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Phil."

Quietly, a hand going to his wing (well away from where it was torn off) to gently try and close it.

"It's okay. It's my turn."

Even through the curtain of his wing, Darcy remains the only thing clear and visible in Number 2's sight. Everything else is... fainter, as if separated by a couple of inches of dark water.

"If everything else is as bad as his analogies I'm sure I'll be fine."

[number_2]

"You can't protect them forever, 202," Number 2 says sadly, shaking his head. "You have to let them spread their wings, so to speak, grow up for themselves, and accept the consequences of their actions." His expression clouds over with sinister shadows.

"Besides, I'm not sure where you got the idea that either of you would be avoiding discipline. You are both equally as guilty, and you will both need to pay."

He steps aside to allow an entire squad of goons to file into the room. Several of them carry syringes full of sedatives. They far outnumber Phil and Darcy and some of them seem supernaturally strong.

Number 2 lifts the milk to his lips to drink while he watches the scuffle. "Don't worry, I'll help you both remember your manners. I promise."