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

[lifeaftr_mods]

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.

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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

[postictal]

Kinda hard to find time to do something like that when you're working just to pay rent.

[No butlers and no free textbooks in Alabama, unfortunately. Just a long list of people who wouldn't hire him for how flaky he could be, and a medical file that could probably pass as a textbook in some respects.]

[whiteas]

[ She looks like she's considering what to say to that. She's not going to argue- she knows she hasn't had that experience yet. She was right on her way to finding out if she couldn't find her sister, and she had no doubt that her sister would tell her to stand on her own two feet, just like she encouraged her to do the last time she had no money. But she's never been in a circumstance without anything yet. ]

I suppose that's fair. [ There's a beat, before she shares: ] My bank account was frozen some time ago, but my school still provided housing and food as long as we were students. I'm afraid I've only actually been on my own for a few days, so I don't have an argument.

[ She shifts uncomfortably, the suitcase she's seated on glinting in the fire when she moves. She's not sharing much more than that, but it isn't hard to put two and two together. ]

[postictal]

[Huh.]

[That raises his eyebrows in apparent surprise. He'd halfway been expecting her to stubbornly push the point just because she could, and her cession of the argument was an unexpected novelty.]

[Unfortunately, it also means she's brand new at this. With, he's pretty sure, not nearly as low a threshold for weird shit as Tim's achieved over the years.]

On your own for the first time?

[whiteas]

In a manner of speaking. I've been away from Father and Klein before, but it was with professors and friends.

[ And her mother barely counted as a presence. ]

Suffice to say I have everything I own with me that wasn't lost to the ocean floor upon arrival.

[ Which is probably pretty strange considering she's wearing sapphires and silver. She's not exactly the standard runaway. ]

[postictal]

[No clue who Klein is, but based on the offhand way she mentions them, he's guessing a friend or guardian of some sort. Not so surprising; she seems like she's probably more well-off than anyone else he's met.]

Hold onto it as long as you can, then. Might be all you get for a while.

[whiteas]

[ She wasn't sure if he meant back home or here, but Weiss considered that it may apply in both situations. She already had been nervous being cut off when she was still at school. There was a knot in her stomach that kept telling her that she wouldn't be able to do this on her own, deep-seated from being told for years that everything she was worth was because of her father-- often directly from him, whenever she had tried to push the boundaries beyond his predictions, then eventually broke free entirely. ]

There's nothing more like a fresh start than some place no one knows anything about you.

[ She hadn't wanted a fresh start- she'd wanted to repair her name, to overcome her father's "legacy" and make things right. She'd wanted to do the right thing, to protect people and become the type of person people wouldn't speak about with loathing in their voice. But a fresh start would have to do- it was the only option at this point, and Weiss was nothing if not adaptable. She could build her name into something positive instead of change it. She could still make a difference, she just.. needed to figure out how.

So this is square one. ]

[postictal]

[Can't pretend he doesn't know what she's saying - 'cause he knows, full well. A fresh start where no one knows you is about all you can ask for in the wake of some kind of interpersonal disaster. Maybe she's running from something.]

[Maybe she's just trying to adjust to the change.]

[Most he can offer is reassurance couched in nonchalant observation - if that.]

'S not so bad. Seems like it at first, but...you get used to it.

[whiteas]

It'd be a lot better if we had some direction, though. Who kidnaps a handful of people and gives them a sack of junk and lets them loose?

[ Look, she's just saying. Just because they're not being forced to fight a war doesn't mean whoever brought them here isn't hella rude. ]

[postictal]

You'd be surprised. [If he sounds bitter, it's because he is.]

My guess? Some kind of omnipotent god or king or another. It usually is.

[whiteas]

That sounds like something from a fairy tale.

[ She hasn't quite been clued in on the "btw fairy tales are sometimes real" thing yet. ]

[postictal]

[Well.]

And an abandoned island in the middle of the ocean host to a group of intrepid explorers doesn't?

[whiteas]

Our fairy tales are all about warriors, gods and creation myths, seasons... [ There's a beat, before she adds, looking a little uncertain. Honestly, how safe this island seems outside of basic survival needs is more unnerving than anything. ] I don't think anyone from our world would buy anyone surviving being dumped on an island; civilization barely survives outside of the four kingdoms. Villages disappear overnight with nothing but ruins left all the time. Fantasy explorer island sounds like someone's dream after they ate bad seafood more than anything else.

[postictal]

[Yet another deviation from the world he knows. Not that it matters much; plenty of people have worlds that gravitate away from his own, and he won't contest that.]

Well, like it or not, that's where we are now. And something pulled us through here, which means it's probably pretty powerful.

[whiteas]

If it was that powerful it'd be able to afford something a little nicer than the wood scrap rafts we arrived on.

[ She knows he's right though, but it's not going to stop her from grumbling. Even if she did apparently get Tim to at least start talking to her with more than non-committal statements. ]

[postictal]

I'm sure it can. Just not so sure it wants to.

[Whatever the reason - amusement, entertainment, some other arbitrary line he can't discern - he's pretty sure it's all bullshit in the end.]

[whiteas]

Most kidnappers are desperate, boorish criminals who can't think of a better way to accomplish their goals. While it may seem like an impossible feat to have brought us here, that just means we don't know the whole situation yet. Whoever did this may be powerful but I'm not ready to credit them with omnipotence before I've even met them.

[ Not to say that she plans on underestimating them, but she'd rather like to meet whoever did this before any estimating occurs. ]

[postictal]

[Tim shrugs. He won't contest that either. That's her opinion, and she's entitled to it. Might be she'll change her tune once they meet whoever or whatever brought them here, but he's privately thinking it's a little more likely that such won't be the case.]

[Jury's out on whether that's refreshing or frustrating to consider.]

Guess you wouldn't be alone there.

[whiteas]

I've found it's a much safer bet to not assume anything about someone until you've met them in all cases.

[ Great men and the worst. It doesn't always help, there are still people so adept at lying you can't tell until they stab you in the back, but making assumptions has only lead Weiss wrong multiple times. ]

[postictal]

Fair enough, I guess.

[He's got no horse in this race, metaphorically or otherwise. Tim straightens up, dusting the sand off his jeans - which have now thankfully started to dry a little.]

Lemme know if it burns out, okay?

[He indicates the fire with a nod of his chin.]

[whiteas]

Where are you going?

[ Weiss is planning on sleeping right next to the fire. Not that she can't handle the cold- if anything, she's more used to it than most people here from having grown up on one of the continents that are white on the map just because it's always freezing, but that doesn't mean she wants to stray from it. ]

[postictal]

Make sure no one's freezing or wandering blind out here.

[He's got the fire beads, after all. Might be that someone else has something similar, but if he can keep other people from sleeping in apparent discomfort, he might as well.]

[whiteas]

You can bring them back here.

[ A beat. She'd feel bad sending Captain Useless out on his own to help people. Though "freezing" given the weather she might question. ]

Are you going to be okay out there?

[postictal]

[Look, he's gonna help people light fires. It's the least he can do to feel a bit more resourceful than he was in the Castle.]

I'll be fine. [A bit drier, he adds:] Anyone comes at me with a knife, I'll just throw compost at them.

[whiteas]

[ Okay you doofus. Weiss rolls her eyes, but seems satisfied with the answer. If someone says they can handle themselves and they were in another world where they were supposed to fight another person's war, she's not going to hover around. ]

Scream really loudly if you need help.

[ So far that seems to be the best method of communication. And if he's already in trouble, it's not going to hurt. ]

[postictal]

[He exhales, a short huff of air that could be a laugh or a snort of annoyance - whichever she decides, really.]

Hey, same goes to you.