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

[tenthstreetbred]

[Dimensions??? Timelines??? Good lord, this is above her paygrade. This sounds like something that someone like Miranda or Tali could understand, not her.]

More than one version, huh...

[So not different cycles. Muffet already knocked that theory out of the park with talking about same time periods. Speaking of which...]

What year is it where you come from, then?

[prettypurpleparlor]

By the monster calendar? 201X. I know humans use a different version...

[She pauses for a moment, trying to remember the still-somewhat-unfamiliar system.]

2015, I believe, by their count.

[tenthstreetbred]

[Being taken by surprise isn't something that happens too often to Shepard these days. She's been worn down by the weight of the galaxy for awhile and when things turn out worse than they were before most of what she can muster to feel is resigned grit.

But this? Time travel? She hasn't faced time travel.]

2015?? You're joking.

[She looks at Muffet, absolutely baffled.]

There's no way.

[prettypurpleparlor]

No, no, I'm fairly certain that was the year, last I checked.

[She prefers the monster calendar she grew up with, but she reads human newspapers same as anybody and the date's right there.]

Why, what year is it where you come from?

[tenthstreetbred]

[Shepard shakes her head. She can't believe this. She can't fucking believe this.]

2186.

[It's a bit of a timeskip, she thinks.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet makes an expression that, essentially, would be her raising her eyebrows if she actually had any.]

Goodness, that's a bit of a gap. Do you still have clear records from almost two centuries ago?

[tenthstreetbred]

Yeah. Everything is pretty well-documented from there thanks to 2015 being one of those important years for our eventual space travel.

[She can't believe she's talking to a spider.... from the past...]

[prettypurpleparlor]

And I'm assuming none of those stated anything about discovering a hidden civilization of monsters under Mt. Ebott and making diplomatic contact with them.

[She can totally believe she's talking to a human from the future, but only because it's not the weirdest thing to happen today.]

[tenthstreetbred]

Yeah. If that did happen, they left that one out of the history books, which is honestly a bit surprising since we made first contact with aliens only a decade or two after that.

[This has got to be one of the weirdest conversations she's had all day.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

I hope you don't feel insulted if I say that I rather hope we aren't from the same Earth, then- the only other option I can think of is that my species was mostly wiped out and subject to a historical cover-up.

Which is a rather depressing thought, to say the least.

[tenthstreetbred]

I'm not insulted at all. If it's any consolation though, extinct races rarely stay dead where I'm from.

[The Rachni, the Leviathans, the Protheans... sort of.]

I guess we're both time travelers in our own right.

[prettypurpleparlor]

I appreciate the thought. Nice to know that even if I am somewhat... temporally misplaced, I'm in good company.

If you don't mind my asking, I'm rather curious- what are the other species you've met like?

[tenthstreetbred]

What, the species I've met here, or the species I've met back home? Because the aliens back home... wow, there are a lot of them.

[prettypurpleparlor]

I'd be happy to hear about either, but I did mean from your home- after all, we might have different species on my world, but we all started out on Earth as far as anyone can tell. The idea of genuine aliens has me curious.

[tenthstreetbred]

[She chuckles a little, thinking.]

Well, there are a lot out there so it's hard to pick one spot to start, but the main Council races are the Asari, Turians, Salarians and us humans, though that was only after quite a bit of work on my part. Which one do you want me to get into first?

[prettypurpleparlor]

Well, congratulations on standing up for Earth, then.

[Even if it's not a version that has her people, she can't help but want to root for her homeworld a little.]

Hm... the Asari sound interesting- it's a pretty word, if nothing else. What are they like?

[tenthstreetbred]

[Her smile stays on after her chuckle at that.]

I gotta lot of pride for the place. The place I came from was a shithole but it's a pretty marble when you look at it from space.

[Her past was hard and painful but damn if it didn't set her on a path that she's not sure she'd turn away if given the choice.]

They're a beautiful humanoid race of aliens. They've been running the galaxy since before humans achieved space travel. They can live up to a thousand years and they're very good mediators and peacemakers. Though if you ever run into an Asari Commando, you better head for the hills because they're one of the fiercest warriors in the entire galaxy.

One of my friends is a pretty powerful biotic named Liara T'Soni. She's one of the smartest people I know.

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet nods in understanding. Home is home, regardless of its' flaws.]

My, how formidable. What is a biotic, exactly? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the term.

[tenthstreetbred]

It's like... electricity that comes from inside the body? It's hard to explain without you knowing what mass effect fields are. It's something inside my body however, embedded into my spine.

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Well, fair enough- it's not like Muffet could explain magic in that much detail, either.]

And what can it be used to do?

[tenthstreetbred]

Plenty of things, depending on how much control you have and how much you can put out. You can levitate things, move objects, explode shit- the list goes on. I can only do a few things myself however since I'm classified as a Vanguard and not an Adept or something.

Aaand wrapped. :D

[prettypurpleparlor]

Ah, quite useful, then.

[It sounds kind of like blue magic to her, except for the explosions.]

[Muffet listens curiously, asking questions and answering a few of her own. She suspects things aren't going to stay this peaceful, but just for now it's... surprisingly nice, to hear about someone else's world, and talk about her own.]

[It makes home feel a little less far away, somehow.]