![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
TDM 013: BARING IT ALL
| TDM 013: BARING IT ALL |
00. Arrival You come out of the water, the Nameless Island's own inherent energy drawing people in. It's like being suspended between realities and abruptly pushed from behind through a rift in dimensions. It may make you sick, or that might be the motion of the ocean, lifting you to the surface and carrying you to shore. Waterlogged and covered in sand, new arrivals will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. If you don’t manage to get away from them quickly enough, they may even usher you toward the Laid Bare Spa, where new arrivals will be offered free massages, a sauna, hairstyling, and their clothing may come up permanently missing. But you will be given a complimentary towel to leave with if needed! Feel free to explore the Island, though there isn’t much to see beyond what arrivals before you have helped to rebuild. Most of the buildings are abandoned and in dire need of repair, and beyond the city lingers a thick fog that obscures much of the wilderness from view. Wander too far into this fog, and you will find yourself mysteriously looping back to where you began, your memories of what you were doing and how you got there erased. With that in mind, it may be wise to stake your claim on a place to live in the now, whether a rundown apartment in the City, a tent on the beach, a bed in the barracks, or your own space at the House of Worship. Your inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each person's makeshift home. I. THROW IN A TOWEL? Erku's new arrivals may be encouraged to seek out the Laid Bare Massage & Spa for some specialized attention and relaxation, but they and long-time inhabitants will also be offered a chance to earn credits. Anyone interested in earning robot wages will be tasked with being the resident towel person! You’ll stand inside of the room while the patrons are receiving their massages, hot scrubs, or relaxing in one of the saunas holding towels for them should any be requested. Or you may be asked to help with the regular cleaning of the Spa, wiping down all of the tasteful nude statues to free them of the grime and filth (or… other things) that builds up over time. You might even be asked to help lovingly clean the murals of nude patrons (that is to say, fellow Islanders) all over the Spa. But this is a job that requires a very specific uniform. Robots will provide you with your very own chiton or toga. The chitons happen to be very short, not covering nearly as much as they reveal, but the togas might be entirely too long. They brush or drag along the floor and what with being barely held together with the thinnest and most fanciful of ropes, who knows how often they might be untucked? Take care, please, or else the robots might pull you into being the next model for their latest mural portrait instead. II. GRIN AND BARE IT Erku’s resident mental health professional, Dr. D. Love of Healthy Body, Healthy Mind Therapy Center, has taken a keen interest in ensuring that the relationships of you Islanders are progressing in a productive, healthy, and open-minded fashion. And to ensure this, he’s tasked his robot staff to pay close attention to anyone who looks like they are having trouble with relationships with other people on the Island. And after months of so few (none) clients, these robots are very motivated to seek out people in need of their therapeutic assistance! Arguing with a friend? Telling someone to stay out of your life? Being a hermit who refuses to come out of your apartment? Accidentally bump into each other on the street? Make a joke at your friend’s expense? Playfully punch someone in the shoulder? Walk by someone you don’t know and not tell them hello? Well clearly all of you need help in repairing whatever may be damaging your relationships! Before you know it, you’ve been bundled off by the robots right to Dr. D. Love’s office and sat down to talk it all out. The fact that you may not even know the other person the robots think you need to work your troubles out with doesn’t matter. Dr. D. Love is here to make sure everyone goes home happy and satisfied. You may have to play along with this confusing farcical situation, even making up wrongs and slights you claim you have done to one another before finally coming together in reconciliation. The more you deny there is anything wrong, the more the good Doctor will insist you need even more help than they first thought. They might even have to send you into one of their Privacy Rooms and work out your frustrations with each other with their wide array of therapeutic sexual devices and supplies. III. BARE NAKED AMUSEMENT TOUR The trolley is making its rounds as usual with announcements echoing from the loudspeakers that it’s Bare It All Week at Six Flagellants Amusement Park and to kick it off there will be a grand concert at the Loudinus Outdoor Amphitheater that lasts all week long! Not sure what that means? Well, come to the concert and enjoy hours and hours of music played by robots who seem to have taken their songs right from the pop rock crazes of old. Whose old? Who knows. The music may not be completely to your taste, but something about it may make you feel energized and overly dressed. You might even feel the need to strip down until you’re not wearing anything at all! But don’t worry, the robots performing on stage will give you new clothes to wear by throwing skimpy, sexy underwear and lingerie right at you! How did they know your size? Don’t ask questions, just give into the urge to put it on while you rock out until it’s time for the trolley to take everyone right to the gates of the amusement park! Anyone dressed in less for this week will receive free entry, rides, and food and might even receive special prizes at various booths of sex toys, candies that act as an aphrodisiac (meant for sharing of course), stuffed animals, or even a free sex doll! Those are super hard to win from the ring toss, so you should really take advantage and enjoy all the perks of baring yourself for everyone’s viewing pleasure. N A V I G A T I O N |
no subject
"You will understand once you leave this crowd. Not everyone is doing this of their own free will. Keep a close hold on that--your free will, but also your shirt."
Altaïr was a master of weaving in and out of a crowd without having to jostle anyone. Barring another incident, he was confident he could lead someone out of here.
no subject
He hurried up and grabbed the man's arm, yanking him back so that he couldn't get too far ahead.
"Now, hold on just a minute," he said over the noise of the music as it transitioned from one noisy bout of sound to the next. "You don't get to run up on someone with no explanation and haul them off like that."
no subject
"The festival is altering everyone's minds. I can feel it. I would not normally feel like abandoning my clothes in the middle of a crowd. I do not know if it is the music or something else..."
He tried to keep his focus, to remember the urgency of the situation and stay sober. He grabbed his own hand, stopping it just in time from undoing his knife's scabbard strapped to his shoulders.
no subject
"Come on." He sounded a little impatient. Maybe if they got out of the crowd and away from the noise, he'd calm down a little. Krem, himself, was already feeling a little more clear headed now that he wasn't in the thick of the group, though the longer they lingered in the crowd the more tempting it was to be pulled back in.
no subject
"The urge does not trouble me as it should--except I know it is not me. Who I am and what I do are..." twined too tight together. He stopped himself from almost quoting his old Master. Al Mualim had been absolutely right that he had been unable to simply make Altaïr do something contrary to who he was. But being true did not make the memory of that conversation any easier.
Finally on the edge of the crowd, he said, "It is easier to think here. And the... music... is less loud. I still feel the pull, do you?"
no subject
"It is quieter," Krem agreed, not reluctant but maybe a little frowning about the whole encounter. He appreciated that the man admitted he was drawn to it, that he wasn't so far above the urge that it was impossible.
And, of course, as long as he could hear the noise and the crowd, he could feel that draw to return to it. There was no denying it, so he nodded his agreement. "There's nothing keeping us here," he assured. "We can just leave if we wish."
no subject
Come to think of it, this man looked embarrassed now, but it could be for a different reason. It occurred to him, far too late, that he wasn't sure if this man appreciated being ushered out or not.
"I apologize if I have caused you any trouble." Apologizing to people properly was something he'd only just gotten used to doing again. He could just hear the lecture his friend Malik might have given him for this.
no subject
"We'd better move on," he said with a sigh. "Otherwise we're just going to end up back in there and then all that hard work you put in getting me out isn't going to have amounted to very much. I doubt you're going to get too many people to come away, though, so I don't know if it's worth getting caught up in it trying to get anyone else."
no subject
"There. We can sneak in."
From anyone else, this would sound like someone trying to skip the ticket line, like a prank. But Altaïr's face was serious and straight-forward. He was looking for a place to hide after causing trouble. Mingling unnoticed among the people inside was one way to do that.
no subject
He followed along. He didn't ask questions, because what was the point? He was good enough at keeping his head down and blending in, even if he wasn't a rogue of any variety.
no subject
"It's getting quieter, but if you start to feel the effects from the music again, we'll move."
He was being paranoid, he knew it, but it couldn't hurt. No one would care about two people loitering at a fair. He stepped very quietly and waited until no one was looking, then hopped the barrier. He walked into Six Flagellants like he had been there all along. He felt his shoulders untense, but his eyes stayed sharp.
"I'm Altaïr." He didn't expect a name in return, as their meeting was haphazard to begin with, but he thought it might be easier than "you there in the hood."
no subject
Maybe this was the slightly better tactic. Maybe there was no better tactic.
"Cremisius," he offered in return. Now that they'd passed in, he was looking around at everything curiously. It was a new place to adventure and explore, and that meant he was very keen on putting the lay of it to memory.
no subject
"So much effort, for sex and this Augur." Or whatever. He wasn't even sure if the robots truly worshipped or looked for signs. He'd only just heard a rumor of an augur--the Augur--who was supposed to have brought everyone here. As if that was possible.
no subject
And people offered their sex to it?
"I don't know if the buildings and things are for the Augur," he said. "I think we'd all just go absolutely mad on an island with absolutely nothing at all. Well, not all of us. I don't know what most of these things are, I would have been fine."
no subject
"I have seen fairs, but... not one like this. There were announcements that it was for 'Bare It All Week.' I did not know what that meant at the time. I am still not entirely sure. Festivals usually mark the seasons, or some day of religious importance... Is it not like that where you come from?"
no subject
"But I've spent the last ten years traveling all over," he said. Not exactly ten years, but there about. Had it really been nearly a decade? It was hard to believe sometimes. "So maybe the festivals have just gone a bit more manic than I remember them being, too. Got to find a way to get people to celebrate somehow, I suppose."
Sorry I had to go on unexpected hiatus. :( Continue or drop, I'm good with either!
"Were you in the middle of your travels when you were taken here?"