October Intro: Louder than Sirens, Louder than Bells

[lifeaftr_mods]

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.

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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!

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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!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[scourgingstars]

A single healer is never going to be able to save an entire world, Lady Lunafreya.

[shedgrace]

Not alone, no.

['You are the one, Noctis. The stars shine for you, now.']

[scourgingstars]

Then the question still stands: why do you even bother? It does not fall to the line of the Oracles to save a blighted star, but to the last of the kings of Lucis.

Do you truly think those people worth the effort, when so little of it mattered?

[shedgrace]

It matters to the ones who will live to see the sun rise once more.

Everything I did for the Chosen King... would be meaningless, if none were left to enjoy the light he brings. Why should the same principle not apply elsewhere? Is there any act of healing that does not have meaning for the healed?

[scourgingstars]

Oh, do spare me. Do you actually believe they were grateful to you for saving them? No, they were thankful their fleeting lives were prolonged yet another day and nothing more. Humans are selfish creatures, my lady, and nothing you say will alter this fact.

And what then--they live to see the long night their beloved prophecy told them would happen regardless? With or without your efforts, there would still have been a morning where the sun failed to rise. It's likely most of those you struggled so hard to save would simply die regardless, all because some uncaring gods decided to sleep for ages and follow a two thousand year old plan rather than do anything to stop all of this.

Was it truly worth it, knowing it was all useless?

[shedgrace]

[Does he think she doesn't know that most of the people she healed in her travels--most of the people she tried to save with her Covenants--would not survive?]

Everything born must die, Chancellor Izunia.

[Even you, she thinks, though she still does not know what, truly, he is.]

I did not give my life in service to others seeking praise or reward, nor have I any illusions that my meager efforts made any great change in the scheme of things. Ever since I was a child, I knew I had only a brief span of days in which to do the work that fell to me.

[Her mother died suddenly when she was twelve. God-speaker, long has she understood the heartbreaking brevity of a mortal lifespan.]

I chose to spend those days giving others the opportunity to do theirs. [She thinks of Noctis and his destiny. She thinks of Nyx and the power he seized and sacrificed for hers.] And at the end of the long night, there will be sunrise again, and a star upon which it dawns.

If my actions allowed some piece of the world I loved to reach the light of day once more, then I cannot call anything I did 'useless.'

[scourgingstars]

You would think so.

[The bitter remark slipped out before he could think better of it; she seemed to have a remarkable talent for taking what little remained of the mask he presented and shattering it in a matter of seconds. Something about this--about her entire existence--felt like a personal insult and set some crawling fury stirring beneath his skin.]

[Auroram videre potest mane tempus expergiscendi.]

[As long as the people of the world lived to see the dawn, what did it matter what became of their savior? How many times had such a thought crossed his own mind, when enough of him had been human to believe it?]

[Stupid. Blind to reality, and sickening in more ways than one.]

The fact that you had such faith in what you did changes nothing. If anything it only makes the entire that much more pathetic. Nothing is worth that, this is a truth of the world that's not changed since its inception. Did the Astrals care in the slightest what waking them did to their most devoted acolyte?

The world you died for and the gods that presided over your desperate struggles cared nothing for you or for those you wished to save, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.

[shedgrace]

...That you believe that says much about the life you've led, Chancellor.

[How can she think of her mother, Noctis, King Regis, Nyx, Ravus, Gentiana... how can she think of anyone whose life touched hers in some way and think that no one cared for her? That no one cared for the people she saved? Even in her captive, lonely life, she knew she loved, and was loved.]

I am sorry that no one tried to save you.

[scourgingstars]

Don't. I will not warn you twice.

[People were selfish by nature. The compassion he'd been met with in Altissia and Insomnia didn't even fully compute to him; it might have, once. But Ardyn Izunia didn't have the capacity for that selflessness, couldn't even remember what it felt to care so singlemindedly.]

[He remembered betrayal and hatred, the true face of humanity once their savior became of no use to them. They would have discarded here in the end, no doubt. That was just how it worked; one couldn't even trust their family, or the Shield at their side.]

I did not need salvation and I assuredly do not require your healing or sympathy.

[shedgrace]

[She bows once more in her tattered dress. All right, my dude, she says without outwardly demurring, if you McFuckin' say so.]

Then I will not impose much longer upon your time. I only wished to inform you that I, too, will honor the truce Noctis brokered between you; but that you need not keep your distance from me, should you ever find yourself in need of something other than sympathy.