lifeaftr | August Intro: You Think...You Wink...You Do A Double Blink...

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August Intro: You Think...You Wink...You Do A Double Blink...

INTRO LOG: AUGUST

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

Part I: Get Wrekt
You rouse to a splash of sea salt drying on your skin. A haze of glass-white sand glitters in your vision, dappled by lush palms and thick, curling foliage that disappears into a jungle of deep jade. From behind, crackling wood and sawing rope groan from a mangled life raft ran ashore. A petering wash of tide over pebbled sand fills your ears as you struggle to gain your bearings in a vast portrait of tropical color…

No...no, no, that’s not precisely how this story starts.

Why don't we start over?

You rouse to a splash of sea salt, spraying across yourself and the wooden floor beneath you as it breaks across the edge of the platform. The light as it dances across the sea is blinding, dappling white spots across your vision as you slowly come back to consciousness and realize that - this is not where you last remember being.

The middle of the ocean is likely not a place most recall being at all. As you struggle to fully comprehend the new scenario in which you have found yourself, three things become quickly apparent. The raft you find yourself upon barely constitutes as something that should float, never mind a boat. In the distance, perhaps a few hours away at most, a large island beckons to you, a wide strip of beach surrounded by cliffs making it very clear where the most fortuitous of directions shall be.

Lastly, of course, you’re not alone. Hopefully your new companion(s) are just as keen to get ashore before nightfall as you, or voyaging together will not be the most positive experience. At your side you will find a knapsack, one to every member of your raft party, and upon inspecting its contents, you will discover any rewards you may have accrued - as well as a few other items to give you a fighting chance.

A note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme: 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.

Part II: Choose Your Own Adventure

By fortune (or misfortune, as it were), you eventually find your feet meeting sand, blessed shore to stagger upon as you shake off your newly found sea-legs. There are those that may find this place familiar, as though it appeared in a dream, though the expanse of shore certainly seems larger. The beach stretches off into the distance on both sides, curving around sharp ridges and cliffs, mist obscuring the view the farther along it goes.

So here you are. You’ve found land. Company. Supplies. The sun is now beginning to trek rather low upon the horizon…spending the night outside in such an unfamiliar land is unappealing at best and outright dangerous at the worst.

There is one silver lining in the midst of this mess. Directly ahead, the beach curves up a gentle slope until it meets forest, some manner of building visible through the trees. Further exploration of this area will reveal a dilapidated building of sorts; the architecture is indiscernible to even the most skilled eye. Despite looking as if it has seen better days, there are areas that offer some form of shelter...and who knows what else. Just because it appears uninhabited doesn’t mean you won’t wind up pleasantly, or unpleasantly, surprised.

So what shall you do from here, traveller? There is land to be explored, strangers to meet, friends to reunite with. Supplies to inspect and plenty of questions in need of being said aloud. Choose your path, make haste, and above all else: survive. And whatever you will, take heart.

Your story is about to begin anew.

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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Right.

[She nods, mulling it over.]

I remember being very curious about how that all worked- actually, I still am.

I feel like there was some sort of info exchange but I can't really remember any details but...I wanna know about monsters in your world and you wanna know about my various trips to the worlds before this one so...we could maybe just ask each other questions?

Yes, that does sound right to me- and in any case, I'd like to know and am happy to tell you. Is there any question in particular you'd like to start with?

[Newt hums at that, considering] What's your world like?

You'd have to be a bit more specific, Earth's a rather large planet.

The basics, hm... there are two sapient species living on the planet, humans and monsters. Humans are, essentially, matter with a soul, whereas monsters are magic with a soul.

Until recently, monsters lived sealed under a mountain due to losing a war with humanity in the distant past, but within the last year the Barrier was broken and we rejoined them on the Surface. There's been some tension, but overall things are peaceful.

Are humans the only people in your world?

[Newt listens with interest to that, before nodding in response to her question] Yeah. The only monsters are giant 2500 ton alien ones from another dimension--we think--who are trying to exterminate humanity so they can take over the planet and drain it of resources. Oh, and the masters that control them.

Hmmm. Well, they hardly sound like the kind of people who'd make good neighbors. They just decided to skip straight to mass murder, no attempts at diplomatic contact at all?

[These people sound so rude. At least she knows it's not anyone from back home- nothing that big would have fit under the mountain in the first place.]

Definitely not. The only contact we had at all is when I hooked my brain into their hivemind via the Drift. [...he says, casually]

[Muffet briefly considers 'why would you do that' and discards it as probably a fairly obvious answer in retrospect, similarly decides against 'how did you do that' on the basis that it probably involves a lot of complicated technical explanation, and settles for:]

Congratulations. Whatever did you find there?

[....pain. Suffering. Terror. Hate. Destruction. Thousands of minds, tangled together but coexisting. That second time, familiarity, a friend, a mind so different from his own but ultimately so much the same that they fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. How to close the Breach. But after a moment, after something in his attention has been unfocused and his eyes turned out towards the sea, all he says is:]...answers.

Edited 2017-08-14 19:44 (UTC)

[She notes the faraway moment, and tactfully doesn't press further.]

Hopefully, we'll find some useful answers of our own, here. Speaking of which, I think I owe you a few now. Any more questions on monsterkind?

[Newt jolts slightly, pulling himself back from the taste of sea salt and the ghosting sensation of too-sharp teeth and numbers as strong as the handwriting of any gods. He feels, for a moment, like he's too big for his small frame, pushing at the seams--before he digs his fingernails into his palms, recentering himself. Newt shakes his head slightly, as if to clear it, before turning his attention back to Muffet]

Um...what about bullets? Or--how monsters use their magic? I only saw it once or twice. [and felt it. Newt remembers the sensation of gravity doing a tailspin in their spiral-shaped home in Hadriel, badly enough to cause some serious injury to Hermann and for Newt to feel the side effects]

[She tilts her head thoughtfully.]

Well, there's a lot of different uses for magic- it's part of our very beings, as fundamental to us as biology is to you. When it comes to broader categories, they're usually classified by color.

Our most basic abilities all come in white. If you see magic in another color, then they're using something more advanced. More advanced magic comes in seven different types, each with its own associated color.

Bullets, specifically, are a very basic form of magic that all monsters can do. They're white in their usual form, unless you're also using another type of magic along with them, and come in a shape that reflects the nature of the person casting them.

[By way of demonstration, she briefly holds one hand up, summoning one bullet on her open palm. She doesn't send it forward, merely leaves the ghostly-looking white spider there for a moment before she closes her hand and lets it vanish.]

All magic is linked to emotion in various ways, to how one feels. That's part of why bullet patterns are unique to different people. Because a bullet is essentially just casting your emotions out in the form of energy, it can be used either to communicate your feelings and intentions or, if your intent is hostile, to attack.

[She sighs ruefully.]

Unfortunately, since human beings aren't magical by nature and therefore can't absorb energy the same way we do, even a bullet pattern with no hostile intent behind it will still harm them.

[Newt watches as she summons the spider in the air with a sincere sense of fascination--then continues to watch as it vanishes again, turning his attention back to Muffet herself.] That's a really cool way of using magic? I wouldn't have thought it was all emotion-based. Most of the magic I've encountered so far can be influenced by emotion, but it's core is more mental than emotional. But to have all of your magic connected to your emotion....

Is it an endless supply, then? Your magic?

Hmm... I wouldn't call it 'endless' so much as 'renewable', similar to a human's capacity for physical actions- sooner or later there's a limit, and you'll drop from exhaustion if you push yourself too far, but it's not a hard line.

But yes, magic is essentially energy that responds to the emotions of thinking beings. Sometimes the term 'virtue' is also used, for the seven main classifications.

Virtue? [THIS IS ALL SUPER INTERESTING THOUGH Newt continues to be very interested alsdkhf] Virtue in terms of...what kind of decisions monsters make? Whether they're good decisions or bad decisions or something?

Not... precisely?

[Muffet makes a noncommittal motion with one hand, and clarifies.]

The seven types of magic are purple, for the virtue of perseverance, blue for integrity, green for kindness, cyan for patience, gold for justice, orange for bravery, and red for... well, it's less common and not terribly well understood, the virtue for that one is still under some debate.

So, they're emotions, but they're also personal qualities. One can both feel patient and be patient, for example.

Okay so...virtue is more about who a person is rather than an action specifically. [Newt frowns a bit, folding his arms over his chest] I think I get it? I mean it makes sense. Like Hogwarts Houses, but with more colors.

[Muffet snickers.]

You're lucky I even understand that reference- but yes, that works.

[A full boxed set of the book series wound up in the dump once. Judging by all the angry comments scribbled in the margins, someone really hadn't liked the ending.]

I suppose it's even more appropriate for humans than it is for us, considering...

Magic can manifest the soul physically. For monsters, their soul will always appear as the same pale grey-white color as our basic magic.

For humans, however, the soul appears in the color of the virtue that they have the most... mm, I'm not sure how to put it exactly. Most capacity for? Are drawn to most strongly? It's complicated, there wasn't exactly much room for study until recently, what with us all living separately from them.

[Newt blinks at that. It hadn't occurred to him that what applies to monsters magically might reflect on humans as well.]

Yeah? So can just anyone see the, uh...color? I guess?...of people's souls? Or is it only specifically anyone that can use magic?

Anyone can see a soul once it's been manifested physically, but you can't make it appear without magic- so a human could see what their soul looked like, but they'd have to have a monster pull it out for them, they couldn't make it happen on their own.

...Well, most humans. I've heard there were a rare few that had magic, that's how we were sealed behind the Barrier in the first place, but it's so uncommon as to be nearly nonexistent, especially in the modern day. No one's seen a human mage back home in centuries, at least.

Have a monster pull it out for them? Does that, like...hurt? Or something?

[Muffet frowns thoughtfully.]

I don't think so? I can't say I've ever asked anyone about it specifically, but it doesn't hurt to summon your own soul, and it didn't feel different to me when I was small and my family was pulling mine out to teach me how...

It would, of course, be unpleasant if someone were to attack your soul while it was out. It's... not exactly something one does at the drop of a hat, in any case- it's not too rare, but you are making yourself vulnerable by putting such an important part of yourself out there, you wouldn't do it to someone without permission under normal circumstances.

[Newt hums in consideration, far more relaxed once he's told that it doesn't hurt]

So...how hard is it to do that? To pull out someone's soul temporarily?

[WELP GUESS WHO'S CURIOUS NOW]

It's not particularly difficult to make it manifest, it gets harder if you're trying to actually do something to it beyond simply making it appear visibly- especially if it's something the proper owner doesn't want you to do.

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