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

[not_the_last]

She's quiet for a moment.

"If you don't want to talk to him," she says, "then ... would avoiding him entirely be possible? Or is he approaching you?"

[pointofhonoria]

"He's always hoverin' close by—he's runnin' around under the number 40, that's how I caught him out. Hell, if it hadn't been for the badges I ain't even sure I'd'a figured him out, which I ain't a fan of..." She drops her head back for a moment, sighs again. "It ain't exactly that I don't wanna talk to him, though talk's too soft a word. What I don't want is to be alone with the bloke."

[not_the_last]

"I understand that," she says quietly. "All I can suggest is to stay in company with others, then."

A pause. "I'm happy to be part of that 'others', to be clear."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb snorts softly, "I'd hoped so, yeah. 'Cuz honestly, Cass, lotta the others I mighta asked to join this here? They're indisposed."

Erin's already absent, for one. Peter's been gone since their first day here. So on, so forth—everyone's occupied with their own issues, or worse. Cass isn't a last resort, she would've been someone Crabb went to regardless, but she is quite possibly the only resort.

[not_the_last]

Her hands close on each other, on the edge of the table.

"I think there are still some people I can call on, though ... I've been leaning heavily on that. If you'd be willing to let me pull in favors on your behalf."

[pointofhonoria]

There's a solid few seconds of near-silence as Crabb visibly works through her feelings around accepting help at all, and more importantly around anyone else being invited in on any part of her problem with Cragen.

She scrubs at her face again, grumbling at herself, and breathes. "...yeah, alright."

[not_the_last]

"If you would prefer," she says, "I don't need to tell anyone why I'm asking them for this."

[pointofhonoria]

"That'd probably be for the best, yeah. Still a bit— y'know. Sensitive matters, and all that." Personal, private, delicate. "It bein' cause there's someone I don't take too kindly to is alright to speak about, mind, just... yeah."

[not_the_last]

"That should certainly be enough explanation. I'll see who I can engage, and I'll be here myself when I can."

(She will not, as things turn out, be available for much longer.)

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb breathes, "Thanks," and settles back with her arms folded again. "Erin'd already have torn him a new one, I'm sure, but she ain't here right now. I wanna find the Damn words to really give him a piece of my Damn mind, but Christ. It ain't easy. Even after all this time to think, since it all ended."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra bites her lip at the mention of Erin. It doesn't need to be said: she's worried.

"What would you want to say to him?" she asks instead.

[pointofhonoria]

"If I knew exactly, then it'd probably be easier to figure out how to say it. The way this past few years has gone, especially the last year since gettin' to the ship... sure as Hell taught me a lot about the damage he did to me, doin' what he did. And it's given me time to think about what he thought he was doin', the way it's like he just didn't get it. The fact he's spent who knows how long— pining, here..."

It just affirms that fact. He doesn't get how what happened felt, he doesn't understand that it was never Cecil Cragen she cared for.

[not_the_last]

"You've learned more about what it was he did to you," she says, in a tone of seeing if she understands, "and it seems he never knew what it was he did at all."

[pointofhonoria]

"Yeah. That." Her foot taps antsily against the floor. "He don't get it. Probably he never will, even if I tell him to his face. But I don't wanna let him just keep— sittin' there thinkin' whatever utter crap he's thinkin' without tryna shatter it, neither."

[not_the_last]

She nods. Worries her bottom lip between her teeth, a little.

"Do you think it will put you in any further danger," she says slowly, "if you tell him what you think?"

[pointofhonoria]

"Maybe. He killed Tom, far as we can tell, and Tom never did a thing against him. Never did figure that one out. And he gave me one Hell of a concussion, when I confronted him back in the cave. He ain't afraid to hit a hen, that's for sure."

She rubs at her cheek subconsciously, where the bruising had been. That's not even to mention how he was with Johnny.

[not_the_last]

"I wasn't necessarily thinking of danger from him directly. But that's worth considering as well."

A breath.

"But if he was assigned to you by Number 2, or by someone who reports to him, then there may be wider ramifications."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb lets out just the most long-suffering groan. "Right, that too... might be, yeah. Ugh, I hate these bleedin'— corrupt bastards, every Goddamned time..."

[not_the_last]

"Sorry." A rueful smile, flickering in and out again. "But it's where we are."

[pointofhonoria]

"M'so bleedin' tired," Crabb grumbles, scrubbing her hand back over her face. "Every time you think you're done with somethin'..."

[not_the_last]

"Oh," abruptly heartfelt, "isn't that the gods' own truth."

[pointofhonoria]

She snorts, hand falling away again. "Feels like nothin's ever done for, just— on hold. Waiting to rear its ugly head when you least expect it."

[not_the_last]

"Well." She's trying for brisk, and instead it comes out closer to grim, but on reflection she decides that'll do.

"We're not done for either."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb takes a deep breath, sits up straight, and rolls her shoulders. Her tone comes out no less grim, but it's a grim sort of... resolve. "We sure bleedin' ain't, yeah. Nowhere near."