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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[Whatever they see in the Batter, the monkeys don't seem to find it in human children with knives.]

[Frisk has done a well enough job so far of avoiding them -- separated from their Partner, as they've often become in this awful jungle, at least adds the benefit of making them less noticeable. But not invisible. So it's only logical that, eventually, Frisk is forced between the options of FIGHT or flight; and despite the blade poised in their fist, they choose flight.]

[For as long as they can.]

[When they break into a clearing and see another group of apes circling a lean and pale figure, they don't have time to indulge the flicker of uneasy recognition that flares in their stomach. They simply bear forward, ducking through a gap in the monkeys surrounding him, and swerve to stand next to him. Their knife is out, their eyes scanning across the attackers.]

[Sure enough, the two monkeys that had been pursuing them -- have stopped. Have melted into the slow, predatory circle of their brethren, lips peeled back in mirror snarls over yellowed teeth.]

[Ha ha. Looks like they're not the only one to get weird vibes from this man. Oh well. It's not like they've had people any less scared of them.]

[Wordless, their eyes slide towards the Batter.]

[The monkeys naturally divide their focus between the creature they had been staring down and the new child interloper. The Batter, on the other hand, does not move. He could theoretically look at both Frisk and the monkeys at the same time but he had already opened his second set of eyes once and that was enough for him. As useful as four eyes were, there were also a few downsides to it that weren't worth getting into.

Instead the Batter surveys the situation. The monkeys had an advantage in numbers - with the ones that were chasing Frisk, it brings the total to five. He figures the child would have no stepped in if they could not defend themselves. Diplomacy, after all, was very much out of the window.

Even if the Batter wasn't here this would end in a fight.

So he doubles his grip on the spear and speaks. Only two words.]

Get ready.

[Because whatever was keeping the monkeys back when Frisk arrived was quickly losing its novelty and they're slowly approaching closer and closer.

Their mistake. But that weight upon his shoulders is what it is.]

I am.

[They're not. Even as Frisk says it, red steel layered through their voice, the conviction isn't quite enough to still the tremble to their hand. It's been a long time since they've pretended that they're too good to kill anyone. One hundred and ten deaths too late. But that doesn't mean they've gotten the chance to kill since then, and the fear of that cold swell sits in their chest, locking their SOUL down.]

[They've cleaved apart dust in the shape of magic. They've sundered misty, shadowy shades that mindlessly served a queen. Even blood had touched their blade -- but not with killing intent.]

[...]

[They don't want to do this. They don't.]

[But there's no time.]

[There's no time to think about this anymore.]

[Frisk doesn't look at the Batter. They simply angle their gaze towards a rush of movement, and duck the overhead swing by a small and fast monkey -- who immediately recovers and leaps at the Batter as its next target.]

[No time indeed.

The Batter's reaction is immediate. Just like dealing with specters, the faster you are the better your chances. And he was nothing if not fast.

He sidesteps and without hesitate angles his --

claws that sink into their

Spear so it slices into the monkey's throat and tears it out sideways. The creature gurgles as its throat fills with blood and collapse. But the Batter moves on as if, now that the monkey was just a corpse, it mattered little.

There wasn't any mercy to be found here beyond the only kind a being like himself could offer.]

Purification in progress.

[And that was a death sentence in any other words. But there's no time to ponder it. Heads up Frisk, a pair are coming your way. Apparently children that do nothing but dodge are easy pickings.

Or so they think...?]

[Or so they think.]

[Frisk hears the cold, bleak announcement, and it tugs at something inside of them; just as they'd feared it would. It's not his fault, really. They watch a palette of red, viscous blood spatter, and the only thing that feels out of place is the fact that it's not arcing out from them, soaked up through their nostrils, a hot knife of pain that always precedes the sound of breaking glass.]

[They'd prefer it if it was.]

[At least then, they don't have to choose their consequences.]

[The pair of monkeys streaking their way? That means they do. And so Frisk stills the tremble in their hand and thinks, this is their consequence, to give substance to Kittu, to make it mean something other than a name that makes their life hell. It may as well be a hell of their own making.]

[The first monkey brings a club down on their head. They sidestep it, because monkeys are dumb and slow compared to magical projectiles, and slam their knife into its shoulder, full to the hilt.]

[There's the blood, spurting across their face, more familiar than not. Wordless, Frisk yanks out the knife and backs up before the second monkey has a chance to strike.]

[A self-inflicted hell is at least self-inflicted. One created by a child named Kittu, who can at least defend themselves.

And it goes on and on. Escape is impossible.

The second monkey is left to its own devices and in Frisk's hands because another has decided to be brave and go after the Batter again by sneaking up behind him. The blade of a spear slices across the man's arm, although it was for not. There is a flash of light as the Batter uses Save First Base and nothing is left behind but a stain of crimson destroying pristine white.

He puts space between them and thrusts the spear forward, laced with Run With Courage and the grinding of metal. Claws dig into flesh and bone and tear out as much as it can manage. The monkey is screaming in pain and rage until it falls silent.

...but that part is a sight for the monkeys. And really it's just simple violence from a simple man. His actions, our consequences.

And if the Batter is smiling...that might just be in Frisk's imagination.]

[They see it, all right. And whether it's in their imagination or not, who is Frisk to judge? That sort of self-righteousness is better off on someone with 1 LV. On someone who doesn't have a Partner who often smiles for reasons that have nothing to do with being happy.]

[The monkeys are screeching. One of them -- the one Frisk stabbed, they think -- is careening off into the brush, trailing red behind it. Another swings wildly at Frisk's face, scoring its jagged claws down their cheek before they have the better sense not to hope that this one will run away, too. Two more lie broken and bleeding at the feet of the Batter.]

[They hate this.]

[They aren't smiling at all.]

[But there's no hesitation, no flinch, as they grab their assailant's wrist, yanking them closer, and slide their knife up through the gap in its ribs. The meat and lungs give like warm, smoky dust, which had at least been pleasant with a tinge of cinnamon in its scent. The smell of metal here disgusts them.]

[They had a dream, like this once, where it was their innards spilling across the floor, the clogging smell of gore and pennies, as an unforgiving smile made of bone watched.]

[They shove the monkey away, and nothing comes out as it falls to the grass.]

[1 left.]

["LOVE, too, is--"

...meaningless, in the end. You can dig and look for meaning in anything but you have to be prepared to find nothing. Like trying to find something in a man that was epitome of nothingness and an existence like a paper knife. What little he felt was consumed by white.

So sure, Frisk is right. It has nothing to do with being happy. But it has nothing to do with fear or sadness either.

* It's just you.

By now the remaining monkey has gotten the idea that just because it was just a child and a strange creature meant they were ripe for the pickings was very, very wrong and tried to beat a retreat. But the Batter isn't interested in letting it go and he is still very fast.

A hand clamps against the monkey's throat and squeezes, a combination of using its own momentum against it and an application of Magic Homerun that snap its neck. Claws dig into flesh and tear the creature's throat out

...and they scream "Pity us, pity us!" as their organs are torn out and spatter against the floor and he continues. He can't stop, we can't stop, we can't stop we can't escape--

...he needs to stop thinking of the past. No more. It's over.]

Purification complete.

[Isn't it fun to win?]

[Very

very

fun.]

[Frisk's eyes turn away from their own fallen foe just in time to see the last monkey's head twist into a sharp angle. Disgust bubbles into a hot froth inside them -- not at the vague intelligence that flickers out into dullness behind the monkey's eyes, but at their own lack of reaction. They hadn't even flinched. They hadn't even...]

[... felt guilty.]

[Then again, they've been well aware of their capacity to hurt for a very long time. Disgust, where they wanted surprise or guilt to be -- it's better than feeling nothing at all.]

[Maybe that part will come later.]

[They hope it does.]

[HP, too, is an acronym, after all.]

[For now, the thick sheen of blood on Frisk's knife gets wiped ceremoniously onto the soft jungle grass. They don't look up at the Batter, and when they speak again, it isn't in the tone of a compliment.]

I told you I wouldn't want to FIGHT you.

[Guilt. Disgust. The reaction to flinch at the display of overwhelming violence.

Lacking those feelings were considered abnormal by many. A sign of someone who cared little for those around them and would sooner stand by then offer words of pity to the suffering.

Because the world and its creator made him and called for pity. The Batter's response had been to execute them all before walking towards the noose himself. A toy soldier with the power of the deluge myths. You were never meant to exit for a long time.

And that was why he cast everything away. But something beyond the surface level was his reason and his alone, all the way until he is sent back to his coma.

The Batter doesn't answer Frisk immediately like usual and instead concentrates enough to pry one hand off the spear and flex his fingers. He's not smiling anymore, all emotion scrubbed off his face yet again, but something might seem a little off.

Probably because it is, at least to him. The Batter himself counted as a perspective upon himself and his own vision adjusted accordingly, if in a rather abstract way.

It should not happen, yet it does regardless.]

You were not.

[Unless they want to. But the Batter will respond in kind.]

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October Intro: Louder than Sirens, Louder than Bells

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party time

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cw: blood, gore

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