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

[crushed_pearls]

Well Valdis, bad news about the chairs. 44's room is a church, or a facsimile thereof; there's an altar at the head, just past the kitchenette (the tools there are better than the store offers, even at just a glance). There is one pew in evidence, done up as a bed, and the only furniture is shitty metal chairs. Not so much as a table.

Number 44 changes her hand to a mass of filthy, bloody razors. "You're supposed to be smart, 7."

[redlightgreenlight]

"I prefer unpredictable to smart sometimes." Valdis arches a brow at the sight of the razors. "You are making assumptions over what powers I currently possess, so I suggest you put that away so we can have a nice, albeit short, chat about you stalking my girlfriend."

[crushed_pearls]

"Your - ahahaha, hahahahahahaha, hahahahahahaha, oh that's fucking rich. As is your assumption that you can threaten me in my own house when backup's already on its way." 44 opens her door and nudges it wide with her foot, stepping out of the entryway to make room for, you see, the impending goons. "What was it that first attracted you to her? The slaving? I hear it's the new hotness, everyone's just itching for a nice collar to wear to the club."

[redlightgreenlight]

"Your jealousy is amusing."

There's not a single shift in her demeanor, or her confidence, she wasn't lying when she said she and Tiamat were currently on the same side.

"And I don't make threats, only promises."

[crushed_pearls]

"'kay."

She lunges, action and murderous intent in the same instant, clearing the tiny space in a single motion with that claw stabbing for a gut shot. The thread of lust has burned away in an anger that is...not natural, something cultivated and brought out at need, a rage built out of a thousand other negative emotions turned into one that 44 is more comfortable with.

A note; while 44's soul doesn't have the weight of fate that Erin's does, the sheer mass that might let Valdis's lover endure the full force of her power for some time...it does have a weight. It's tipping, dangerously close to being more fae than human.

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis moves, faster than she has shown here so far and with a strength that she had exhibited either she grabs that arm and sends 44 past her, bending the arm dangerously before releasing it and putting distance between them.

"You know why I keep getting away with things?" she asks, already prepared to dodge the next attack.

There's not a lot of time, the goons will get here soon enough and probably rovers soon after, but she's here to push buttons.

[crushed_pearls]

"You're being cultivated as an asset. No one gets away with things here."

That rage is so steady. Vickie flicks something out of her pocket - a small ball - and slams it into the ground.

A smoke bomb, billowing out into the room.

[redlightgreenlight]

"I beg to differ."

The smoke makes no difference, Valdis could fight this battle in her sleep. Her keen awareness of the souls around her, her ability to sense the direction of that rage. It does, however, hinder the goons now flooding into 44's house, making them easy to avoid too.

"Just as I can sense how you lean into your rage to fight, I can sense Number 2's fear when I speak with him."

[crushed_pearls]

It's partway through that second sentence when the kitchen knives come flying, with eerie accuracy, from the direction of the kitchenette.

The rage never flickers. Never wavers. A steady intent to kill, without deviation; a hate with no name on the other side.

[redlightgreenlight]

A few of those knives are hard to dodge, but the fact that she's not even in the house any longer does help with her ability to avoid them. She slams the door shut, leaving 44 and her goons in the smoke filled house before vanishing into the night, heading back to her own home. She wipes a streak of blood off her cheek, but there's no wound underneath it. Or at least, not anymore.

[crushed_pearls]

When the smoke clears, slowly, 44 has had to backhand a few of her own thugs to the floor when they got into her personal space. She breathes hard. Helps her goons up to their feet and orders them out of her house.

Lights a cigarette.

Eventually she gets on the phone to report this incident.

[number_2]

"What is it, Number 44? Don't you know it's late?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Muzzle your new dog," 44 snaps; her breathing is hard, her voice shaking. She's only not screaming because she's holding tight to her tame hatred. "...7 broke into my home, big man. My. Home. And now she's in the wind, outside of curfew. To say nothing of the bad information I got about her preternatural strength and reflexes."

[number_2]

"Mind your tone," he snaps right back.

"Number 7? She's been a hard case, but surely she isn't more than you can handle? Or, have I misplaced my trust?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Misplaced - I know you're excited to have Number 6 back, big man, but, but it's not Christmas yet and you're opening your present awful early." Ragged breath in. Long breath out. Calm, calm...

She's not calm. "Your dog is telling anyone who can hear that you're scared of her. It's stopped being about my reputation, Number 2. That kinda subversive talk is how you wake up to fifth columns. Can you muzzle her or can't you?"

[number_2]

"The only one that sounds afraid here is you, 44. Do I need to bring you in for treatment?" The threat behind these words is implicit, if she cannot get a handle on herself, she will have to go back for adjustments.

"Number 7's sedition does not make me worry for my reputation, she is new and she will be dealt with, but you believing you have the right to make demands of me does. I will muzzle all of my hounds if I must."

[crushed_pearls]

"...Be seeing you, Number 2. I hope you'll remember the good work that's been done so far. This is, after all, the first real test of your utopia."

Click.