lifeaftr | October Intro: Louder than Sirens, Louder than Bells

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October Intro: Louder than Sirens, Louder than Bells

INTRO LOG: OCTOBER

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: October 3rd
Where: Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

The Beach: For All the Rest
The shores of Ensō are far from the tranquil, almost idyllic tropical backdrop that they should be. And so it is that while you fish, or perhaps as you go about your daily business on the islets, the first thing you will note is the persistent sound hammering at the back of your skull.

A drumming.

And it's growing louder.

The source of the drumming will, like it or not, soon become apparent. At the fringes of the trees, wielding slings and hollow, wooden pistols, is a group of large and very displeased simians who have every intent of claiming this spot of beach - yes, traveler, this spot of beach you're standing on right now! - for their own, and by any means necessary.

And they certainly don't look interested in diplomacy.

If you came armed, you might be in luck, because this conflict will require your steady hand in its resolution. If you did not...well, you may be better suited to run, or risk capture at the hands of warriors skilled, cunning, and incredibly vicious. Laugh at their monkey business all you like; they are ingenious fighters and, what's more, they're just as good at killing as they are at capture.

For the uninitiated, this particular brand of chaos doesn't usually sweep across the entire island the way it has. But those who have been here for some time will recognize the monkeys in question, and might even recognize this for what it is: revenge.

Group I: The Squeakquel
Looks like your monkeying around last month has landed you and everyone else in a spot of trouble. The monkeys in question certainly weren't happy to be confronted with others on their lands, nor are they willing to share their territory. While you may have triumphed last time you confronted them, the apes have been planning their revenge in the meantime.

Some of you were unlucky enough to become targets. Overnight, a great deal of them silently invaded the islets. Their blow-dart guns are equipped with a fairly powerful sedative that is more than capable of knocking most living creatures out - and those that were immune were simply snatched up, gagged, and bundled away.

However, it seems that some of their prisoners didn't suit their purposes, for one way or another, and thus weren't retrieved with the intention of long-term capture. Which is why a number of you will awaken in regions of the island that you've already explored.

...the really, really dangerous ones.

Whether it's a Center of Gravity, a parade of centipuppies, a contingent of Lungblossoms, a Fustercluck, or something else entirely, one thing is certain: the monkeys wanted you out of their way.

So get ready to fight for your life.

Group II: Ape Escape
If you're not one of the slightly luckier newcomers that materializes on the shore, then you're one of the unlucky ones that's managed to materialize square in the middle of the jungle. Or rather, in the middle of one of the denser, more populated parts of the jungle. The abodes woven into the canopy are crude, built of mud and sticks, but they're nonetheless sturdy.

And, as an important note - they are also swarming with monkeys. Snarling, baying, armed monkeys. Perhaps they'd be more hostile toward an interloper...if you weren't already in a cage, along with several others.

Fortunately for the newbies, they've all got something the monkeys didn't anticipate, aside from the element of surprise. Most prisoners don't arrive with knapsacks full of newly-acquired gear, and it's a good thing, too - you may very well need it, and the help of the new arrivals, to escape this place. You could always wait for the cavalry to come, but are you really willing to take that risk?

Group III: Pot Luck
As for you, you terribly fortunate third group?

You'll find yourselves suspended in wooden cages as well, though this time, to the hot curtain of whitish steam clouding your vision. It smells an awful lot like smoke down there. An awful lot like something...burning? Unlike your fellows over in the second group, these cages aren't simply a means of containing you, no. These cages are currently hanging over what might be the largest cast iron cauldron you've ever seen. All of this is, of course, for one simple reason:

Some species of monkeys are carnivores.

The acrid scent of smoke is already hot and rancid in your nostrils; the pyre beneath you has been lit, and the hungry flames are beginning to boil the water below quite eagerly. We'd suggest you hurry up in freeing yourself and your fellows - being boiled alive is not a particularly pleasant way to go. At least the monkeys weren't expecting quite so many main courses so soon, which allows you the element of surprise.

As a final note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme, bear in mind that those threads, if all parties involved would like, can be game canon in the form of dream-like memories involving a place very much like this one, though the layout is considerably different.

All new arrivals will awake with knapsacks with their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can be found below!

Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the Locations Page, which has details regarding the starting areas and a handy map for those who feel better with a bird's eye view!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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[Ordinarily, they would lead him to the islets, to take shelter there. But those in the islets were not safe. Barring that, perhaps somewhere near the location of the elves. But the elves, likewise, were far from immune - Lup's capture had seen to that.]

[So where does that leave them?]

keep moving
do not let them find us

["Us" being the pivotal word. Like it or not, they've taken it upon themself to see Asriel to safety, no matter how fleeting. And should that safety be compromised...]

[They will see him to it again. And again. And however many times they must.]

[Ignis is glad when he finally makes his way to the edge of the encampment. Blind as he is, it's been a challenge made even more so by the fact he's herding a few Bludrocs that managed to escape their pen in the chaos and were at great risk of being killed.

Of course, he could have left them behind, but it would have been a terrible waste.

When the tired voice calls out to him, Ignis pauses, the Bludrocs milling around his feet. Carefully, he pushes them away with the toe of his shoe, grateful when he can hear them hesitantly following him as he makes his way closer to the voice.]

I'm not hurt, but you sure sound like you could use a bit of a pick me up. May I?

[His regenerative and moral lifting magic has nowhere the effect the mana pool would in restoring her, but it should help at least a little, enough to let her get to the pool easier anyway.]

[ She's a little surprised when someone calls out to her with an offer of help. Mira isn't sure that's something she'll get used to; back home, she had been the one to take care of people, what with Mother being the healer. The rare times someone had taken care of her, it had been her parents...

Her heart aches, and she swallows back the tears. ]

That's... very kind of you, sir. If it's no trouble...

... You're very noble.

[ And a little... well, even thinking it feels rude. ]

If you insist, though... I wouldn't want to upset a stranger.

[Us.]

[Ha ha...

He missed that word so much.

Asriel had come to terms with a lot of hard things. Or... he likes to hope he has, at least. He'd made his peace with "us" being a word he would never get use again. Chara's been gone for a long time. Let Frisk live their life. Take care of Mom and Dad for me, okay?

He doesn't even deserve "us."

He's... never been a very good friend. He just hurts his friends. Sets them back. This person was kind enough to scoop him out of peril, and they risked themselves to do it. He can't even properly return the favour; he doesn't know anything about how to live on the surface, how to navigate a jungle, how to find food or shelter in a kind of landscape he's never once experienced. His magic isn't even powerful enough to be much use as a guardian.

He doesn't understand.]

Mx. Drifter...

[Mx. is okay, he hopes.]

Won't "us" be more dangerous than just "you?" Why are you being... so nice to me?

[ They've only just met, but she thinks she'll like him. ]

You're right. Even if it's just something small, it all can add up very quickly.

[ She pauses. ]

Yes. Is that strange?

The "several people" you mentioned, I assume. [ Hearing Luna speak so fondly of them, they must be incredible. ] What are their names, so I know who to keep an eye out for?

I'm well, despite appearances that may suggest to the contrary.

[As he speaks, Ignis sends a dagger flying with pinpoint accuracy toward a monkey who makes the mistake of being a little too vocal as it closes in on the pair. In a flash of blue and a crack of crystals, the dagger appears back in Ignis' hand seconds after burying itself deep into the now dead monkey. This would probably be impressive enough for someone who can see, but when Ignis tilts his head in the man's direction, the scars over his eyes make it clear that he can't see anything.]

Are you in need of any healing yourself?

[Perhaps it is the confidence of a being created to fulfill a purpose and succeed at it. The task of escorting someone somewhere safe was different then the Batter's original function, but it was a purpose nonetheless.

Even if he is walking a little fast.]

I am the Batter. [A title more than anything, but there was nothing else to call him.] You?

Keh. You're being too easy on him, Muffet-chan.

[But, obligingly, Ichimatsu eases his weight back so that he's not rubbing half of Monkey's face into the dirt. This ape can play dumb all he wants... Ichimatsu is fairly certain everyone comes here with some sort of translator built in. There's no way everyone he's spoken to here has such perfect Japanese, and there's no other explanation for how he understood that Tibia kid's sign language, either.]

[Sure enough, the ape lifts his gaze enough to narrow his eyes at Muffet. He ooks unpleasantly and hocks a lob of phlegm onto the ground. For what these apes lack in spoken language, they certainly seem to be able to convey with rude gestures.]

[Certainly more formal than they are used to, make no mistake, but the child is...polite, if unnecessarily formal. But it seems that a great deal of children here are, with Ren as the notable, welcome exception.]

[Their dark eyes blink once, sliding back over to the child as he questions the purpose of such kindness. Questions why they would bother being so nice to him. It should not count as nice, what they've done; it is protecting a child who does not deserve to live in a world of perpetual fear and doubt and pain, the way the children of the world that came before did. Living always in terror for what was to come, for the creeping of the Immortal Cell that would claim their lives.]

[And yet...]

[And yet.]

[It is not unlike their own festering doubts. It is not unlike their queries as to why someone would bother. Why a fellow drifter would pick them up off the ground and carry them to a bed and offer them a place in a town that would surely not have given them a second look, were it not for this respected figure's open support. Unceasingly kind, and never once asking for a favor in turn.]

[If they had done nothing right for them in life, they can do this now. They can honor them, by emulating their sense of duty.]

[By being brave in being kind in turn, to others.]

[It may be difficult to tell, but the lines creasing the Drifter's cobalt brow soften, and that faint frown disperses.]

i do what was once done for me
children should not live in fear

[Brian's mind races a mile a minute, shifting through possibilities. The storyteller, almost being dinner- all of this could easily be bullshit. It feels real, but that doesn't mean anything. Did he even die? Did Tim? Does he know the face under his mask, or is the tape he took from Brian's broken body still heavy in his pocket, waiting to be watched?

Even the spear throwing ape isn't enough for Brian to be entirely convinced Tim isn't aiming at him, and his heart catches, hand itching towards the knife tucked inside his waistband as though it'd do any good at this point. But the axe misses him by a mile. After taking a moment of dull amusement in which end of it catches the ape, he hobbles over to the unconscious creature, knife now fully drawn, and- and.

What does he do? He's never killed something like this before, even if it was intending to kill him. If it's unconscious, then it would be needless, right?

Correct, he decides, and lowers the knife.

He picks up the axe, very, very slowly, and turns to face Tim, feeling sure that one wrong move here could unravel the situation rapidly. Doing his best to make his actions clear before he carries them out, Brian points to a patch of grass a few feet in front of Tim, before tossing the axe onto it. He doesn't move any closer; stays wary and watchful. Your move, he thinks.]

[A snap decision, badly thought out with an execution even worse to match. His heart thuds in his throat when the monkey falls - not dead, right? Not dead, right? And then again when Brian draws near. There's a glint of something silver in his hand.]

[Brian.]

[He knows the face beneath that mask. He knows the face there, because he's seen it grinning out at him through footage long-dead. Through a version of the man that died as well, because the gentle encouragement that made the hollow of his chest ache, the good-natured laughter that had Brian nearly doubling over in his seat, hadn't felt real. Stirred traces of memory that was rubbed out of him. Or maybe just - given up.]

[Brian, he of the ziggurats of paper coffee cups on the dashboard and the six-packs swinging in his grip to the detriment of the productive filming day Alex had planned; he of the barking laughter and the easy smile and the hair rumpled after hours spent in the rain and the disarmingly sincere lifts to his eyebrows - wouldn't have done this. He wouldn't have drawn near to the unconscious creature and drawn a knife and stood over it like a butcher ready to gut a lamb for the slaughter.]

[The fact that he doesn't, means...]
[Something.]

[Hell if he knows what.]

[The constriction in his chest redoubles when that gloved hand wraps around the handle of the axe. Another free weapon. And he picks it up, slowly, deliberately, and turns to face him.]

[A lamb to the slaughter.]

[Set himself up for that one nice and easy, didn't he? Brian had plenty of opportunities to finish this job here and now. He had plenty of opportunities to slit his throat while he slept, or drag his unconscious body off a cliff, or weight him down with stones, or any number of significant, poetic, and otherwise thematically relevant ways of gutting that LIAR he cursed with every code and cipher.]

[Tim closes his eyes and breathes through his nose and he thinks, fleetingly, of the kids he can't protect from this. Not now that everything he's run from has caught up to meet him.]

[Another soft thump doesn't sound like an axe being thrown, or the butt of it slamming into his temple (not done with him? wanting to coax out the masked thing coiled up tight inside his head once more and having one last fucking go of it?), or anything that he's braced himself to expect. The axe lands harmlessly on the patch of ground in front of him.]

[Like a knife dropped in front of a man bound up and helpless on the floor.]

[His eyes dart down to the weapon. Up to Brian again. That shapeless, cloth mask with the red dots, the frowning face.]

[But Brian had always smiled.]

[He steps forward, just once. Slow. Hesitant.]

[Trembling.]

Brian?

[It's strange, isn't it? How a single act can change a person's entire world.

A kid who climbs a mountain for an unhappy reason realizes there's still kindness hiding somewhere in the world. The too, too short time they have is enough to make them willing to give up anything to set monsters free. Anything to repay this unreserved love and acceptance. Anything to set things right, let them escape a world of smothering darkness. They just want to do what was once done for them.

One cruelty is all it takes to dash Asriel's whole world to bits. He loses himself completely. That one act eats away everything he used to be and anchors itself in the hollow space it once occupied. He spreads so much misery, and for what? Just to fill one more day of existing. Just because everyone who doesn't see things as bleakly as he does is naive, foolish, wrong, needs to have that rosy veil ripped to shreds until they think the same. He does what was once done for him.

A skeleton thinks maybe a troubled youth only needs a friend. Some guidance to keep them on the straight and narrow. He risks himself to Spare someone, and they throw down a plastic knife into the snow and begin to cry. A little monster kid tags along with a fellow child. They talk of school, and heroes, and splash their way through puddles. Just one person treats the human like what they are: just a kid. One person in the entire Underground stands between the child and an adult who wants to hurt them, and tells them "you'll have to go through me, first." A kid gains the resolve to try and help monsters, because there's more to this world than just getting hurt. They do what was once done for them.

A kid looks up at someone who's twisted himself into a grotesque angel of death and decides to SAVE him. He's done nothing but torment them, bully them, kill them, rip their happy ending away over and over again. They forgive him. They comfort him. They try to be there in his last moments. It's all he can do to break the Barrier. It's all he can do to finish what Chara had died trying to do. It's all he can do to try and just let Frisk have a future with people who love them.

This is no time to be a crybaby, hee hee. Asriel blinks hard a few times, and... and he smiles. What lies ahead is still scary and unknown. He still doesn't know if he can be useful. But somehow, despite that...]

Then I hope I can be as nice to you. The world feels a whole lot less cold and empty with even just one friend in it, doesn't it?

[As nice as you. They've never...been a creature of that sort. One cannot afford to be, in a world where life after life is snatched away, where your kind is beaten and robbed and left for dead for the blue tint of your skin. Drifters do not linger. They wander because it is safer than growing attached, and risking everything for the sake of those attachments.]

[But somewhere along the line, a small girl gives them a flower clip, so they can feel a little less alone. So they can feel powerful. A lady with too many eyes and deep violet skin asks about their favorite sort of food, over and over again, and grows frustrated when she cannot make something they call their favorite - because they have never had one. A man gives them a surgical mask to shelter from the worst of the elements that will inevitably consume them. A man splits a coconut and calls them homie and grins when they spread a tigershark pelt across the sand. A skeleton reacts with undeniable concern and regret, when their illness flares through no fault of his own.]

[Allies, mostly. Others...]

[Friends?]

[Those they must protect. Those they owe.]

friend

[The word has always felt an imposition. A curse. Because friend means loss and loss is easy to bear, when one knows well enough to not get attached. They have had practice, in that regard. But there is no severing the bond once it is formed. There is only holding that thick pink cloak in your gloved hands and pulling the thick cream fur edging its collar tight around yourself.]

[It was much too big for them.]

never had one

Here. I haven't a cup to offer you, but you should drink something, after all that fighting.

[Lunafreya takes off her own knapsack and removes from it a jug of water, which she offers to Karin.]

Go on. Small sips, but have as much as you'd like.

[The island surely wouldn't be able to support even a small population for any amount of time without fresh water to be had, so Lunafreya's not concerned with conserving what she has. Not in an emergency situation like this.]

[A long time ago... Asriel met someone who'd never had a friend.

Try as he might, he's not sure he could name another person who he'd cared about so deeply. How had the rest of the world missed this? How had they failed to notice how selfless, how funny, how smart, how courageous, how unpredictable and life-changing and wonderful this person could be?

He never understood how anyone could know them and not love that person with all their heart.

Maybe he's being naive again. Maybe it's his inexperience showing. But it sort of seems to him... it sort of seems like the people who could use a friend are the ones with the most devoted, powerful souls.

Or maybe... maybe it's a little like Papyrus. Sometimes people don't even notice how much light they give off. He wishes for friends, not realizing how many people he's already warmed with his radiance. Maybe it's like how Frisk pet so many dogs, flexed so many times, flirted and unhugged and prayed and laughed, and it didn't even occur to them how many people were supporting them until the castle overflowed with monsters rushing to their aid.]

Would you like one?

[Asriel extends his paw to the Drifter.]

I would. I think I'd really like to be your friend, Mx. Drifter.

Some of them, yes.

[After all, if everyone who'd ever helped Luna were here, we'd hella hit the cast cap.]

Noctis Lucis Caelum--or Noct, he might ask you to call him. He's a young man with dark hair and a casual manner of speech. His advisor, Ignis Scientia, is also here, and I believe their dear friend Prompto. They're all a bit younger than me, and likely to be seen together.

[Just a family of all boys.]

A man named Nyx Ulric is also here. He can be brusque, but he has never failed to be of aid. He's one of the bravest men I have ever known.

[It's a gesture they've learned to recognize through osmosis. An open palm, a hand extended in greeting. Or...in promise? It is difficult to say. Perhaps, like a nod, it can mean many things based on the surrounding context. And the context now is]

[Friend.]

[Would you like a friend?]

[The boy does not know them. Does not know about the sickness gumming their lungs. Does not know that agreeing to be a friend to a dying creature will mean that it will only hurt, that wave of helpless frustration when confronted with irrevocable loss for something you would have fought so hard to keep, if allowed the chance. Or, even if he does know what it is to bear those weights...is he truly willing to carry them?]

[It is a terrible thing to ask for a child.]

[Make decisions carefully. Once they have made them, they cannot allow themself regret. They only dwell upon one regret, upon one loss, upon one memory.]

[If they refuse, they will surely pay that price as well.]

[It is better to pay a price in happiness than it is solely in death.]

[The Drifter takes his small paw with their thick-gloved hands. The fingertips look slightly pointed, almost talonlike, but their grip is gentle. And their dark eyes slit into dark little half-moons.]

ok

Then we've both got a friend, just like that.

[Their hands are a lot bigger than his. He can't help but wonder if the thick gloves are too hot in a place as warm as this, but... they wouldn't be that bundled-up, he thinks, if it was uncomfortable. He, after all, sees nothing unusual in pointed fingers or blue flesh. The word "monster" carried a lot of vastly differing definitions to it back home.

It's supposed to be a handshake, maybe, but Asriel - he kind of just wants to hold hands. It's been a long time since he even had hands to hold, and it's... it's really been kind of a tough morning, huh? He doesn't cling hard enough that Drifter couldn't easily tug their hands away, though. Just... stays as gentle as they are. Lets them decide how much is enough.]

You know, it might be fun to stay on the move. They say that the surface is big, right? A billion times bigger than the underground. We can explore. We can find all the secret caves and ancient ruins and hidden rooms with Art Club meetings and quiches! We might even find a secret village, who knows?

[Lunafreya nods. She hasn't seen much of Miss Muffet's brand of combat yet, but she understands, in theory, the tactical advantage of a change in terrain.]

Very well. I pray there we might also find others to aid us--if for nothing other than my peace of mind.

[She adjusts the knapsack on her back--when did that get there, anyway? She'll have to check it out later--and nods again.]

Even the most capable of warriors fights better with a capable comrade at their side, do they not?

"I can do a single-target version that packs a little more punch." Gobbet offers, helping Shepard by breaking away whatever partially-sawed bars she can so they can move to the next one. "I can also heal a little and make you move like lightning. Not sure if I can summon here, but theoretically? That too."

Hey, she's proud of her skills. She spent years working to hone them to a fine point and wield them like a true warrior...Okay, so that was more poetic than the truth, which was that they came to her as naturally as breathing and she didn't know where she began and her powers ended most of the time. It was just something she could do. That distinction had been blurred even more by the island, which made every spell cast feel like spending a piece of her soul.

If you put her on the spot, she'd say she has maybe one or two more of those clouds in her pocket before she ran dry. Maybe a few bolts and a heal or haste if she could ride the adrenaline long enough.

[Well, okay. If he wants to have a casual chat about this while carving his way through the compound, who's Lunafreya to say no?]

My healing stems both from my own nature and the providence of the Astral gods. My bloodline, that of the Oracles, was long ago granted the ability and responsibility to commune with the forces that govern our world. Part of that gift allows us to serve as channel for the Light, but it takes something of us as well.

[She shakes her head.]

I cannot mend my own flesh when it is the medium through which that very power is made manifest. I can only do what I can to ease the suffering of those around me.

[Brian has known he was being followed for a while now, but Tataru hardly seems a threat. When she speaks up, he takes a look around them and shrugs somewhat helplessly. Truth be told, he's just been following others whenever he comes across them. Generally, they've been all been heading....

He points further north.]

Well. He can already tell this lady is a bit more well-equipped for this than his initial party had been. The goat and Tim weren't exactly who he'd enroll to be survivalists. Not that he'd really done all that well himself, almost drowning but- Pharah doesn't need to know about all that. Still, when she doesn't retaliate to his threat he seems to calm down just a fraction. Only a fraction.

"No," he answers, huffing indignantly. "Those fuckers must've taken everything off of me."

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October Intro: Louder than Sirens, Louder than Bells

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