January Intro: I Know the Winter's Getting Colder

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: JANUARY

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: January 5th and onward
Where: Chol and surrounding waters
Warnings: Mark as needed!

The Overview: New Lands
New arrivals will not be waking in the typical hub of activity; instead, they will find themselves coming to on the small island of Chol. While the island's fringes are little more than an unforgiving spread of craggy, canyon-like rock and coastal cliffs, the island dips down to form a fertile divot of edenic woodland in its center. The people living there will even be helpful and polite to you, should you inquire after them.

All new arrivals will additionally awake with knapsacks, their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can all be found in your acceptance notices!

Icebreaker: This is the Winter of Our Youth
Unless you're someone with a fondness for the cold, you'll undoubtedly be waking with more than a slight chill in your bones. The appearance of the island of Chol has signaled a coming event of great import in LifeAftr, and unfortunately, the signs of that event's approach have already been set in motion. The temperature has begun to drop as the sun's rays begin to die, faster and faster, leading to an impressive cold snap in the ocean waters - particularly those surrounding Chol.

It is for that reason that you won't be waking on Chol, per se. Instead, you'll be waking on a thick crust of ice that's mantled itself over the ocean waters, freezing solid enough to bear your weight...for the most part. The ice won't hold forever; it isn't meant to. If you happen to be particularly vivacious in your waking, or especially active in general, thick cracks will start to spiderweb out from underneath those impacts with low, warning chunks and wrenches of fracturing ice. Better hurry to land soon, unless you care to take a little dip into those freezing cold ocean waters.

Mainland: When We Pick Over the Past
Should you make it to the land of Chol, braving the iced-over waters surrounding its craggy shores, you'll encounter something at least as startling - the people who have elected to set up a rudimentary encampment upon its lands. While a bit on the scalier side, the Jormun are nonetheless allied to you land-dwellers, and will welcome you to the island. Most will be preoccupied with preparations for an approaching siege, but many will comment idly that the cold is a sign of the coming battle. Some may point you to their leader, known to most as Munin, but others will venture hospitality based on the actions of those land-dwellers that came before you, who were successful in allying themselves to this sea-dwelling people.

Those who might have braved the cold a little too fiercely will quickly be offered some rather rough blankets - perhaps more on par with burlap sacks in terms of texture - as well as a hot brew that the Jormun call brrkshavak. Heated to a boil just prior to being served, the drink will be more than adequate in warming your weary bones, though it bodes mentioning that it is both scalding hot and made with a fleshy kind of undersea herb that is akin to crushed chili pepper in taste.

It'll warm you up, all right.

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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.

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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

[walkietalkie]

❰ one word. that's all she gets, but something swells in her chest the way this frigid air could never even hope to. hope - that's what this is, is hope. it's stupid to have hope, she's already scolding herself for it, finger lifting off the 'talk' button she didn't even realize she'd already pressed again.

clementine swallows hard, and when she presses it again, her voice comes low and wary: ❱ I know who's supposed to have that walkie. ❰ but she can't shake the irrefutable fact that she remembers and that has to mean something, right? it has to. so after a pause, she adds: ❱ Someone I made a promise to.

[ishotyouuu]

[If it's a hallucination, then it's the most persistent and oddly specific hallucination that he's ever been a part of. Maybe it's just the Storyteller messing with him, either out of sympathy or just some really nasty trolling. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise him. But he finds he doesn't care all that much. Because...

Because it's the first time he's heard her voice in what seems like decades. Because he's forgotten how young she sounds, young and strangely mature all at the same time. Because even if this is just an illusion, it's one he'd be willing to lose himself in for as long as he possibly could.]

Cle- [His voice breaks, stumbles over the name. Something's caught in his throat. Wade swallows with difficulty and tries again.]

...Clem?

[walkietalkie]

❰ clem hasn't cried in... way too long, honestly, considering the shit she's seen in the last few months. there's a point where you just kind of... go numb, maybe without even realizing.

she hadn't realized. not until her name echoes through the walkie and something raw and heavy explodes in the center of her chest. like the rubber band holding her together has finally snapped. only moments later does she realize she's curled around the walkie, forehead on her knees as she tries to suck breath through a throat that doesn't work, into lungs that don't seem to work either.

she's still not crying, but somehow, this is almost worse.

long seconds later, it clicks that this is a good thing. she almost forgot - because when something hurts like this, it's a bad thing, right? - but now half-numb hands scramble for the walkie again, fumbling with the talk button. ❱

Where are you? ❰ maybe she usually sounds 'strangely mature', but right now she sounds very much her age. eleven years old and urgently unwilling to be apart from him for even a second longer than she can help it. ❱ I'm-... There's an ocean, but it's frozen. I'm on the shore now.

[ishotyouuu]

[She sounds like Wade feels-- broken and vulnerable and not entirely ready to believe that this is real, that at any given moment this crazy, tentative hope won't somehow be ripped away from them. Wade finds himself struggling to breathe; to force enough air into his lungs to properly formulate a sentence.]

Any landmarks that you can see? Fallen trees, rock formations-- anything like that? My teleporter's-- [He breaks off. There's a muffled string of curses before he addresses her again.]

I'm gonna come find you, baby girl. Just tell me what you can see.

[walkietalkie]

Um - ❰ she looks around now, trying to pick out a particular landmark along the icy shore. ❱ There's a path. It's heading away from the water, and-... ❰ it cuts off, and when she speaks again a couple of seconds later, it sounds like she's on the move. ❱ It goes downhill, through a bunch of big rocks. I'm taking it. ❰ because sitting around and waiting isn't an option, she feels like she'd burst or implode if she tried, and the odds are pretty good that he's inland anyway, since that's the only real direction to go.

but then it occurs to her to ask: ❱ How dangerous is it? I don't have any bullets... But I've got my axe. ❰ and she should probably know what to be ready for. just in case. ❱

[ishotyouuu]

[It kills him to hear her voice so close and know that she's still out of his reach. Wade begins walking to the direction of the shore, out of a need for something, anything to do, keeping up the chatter all the while.]

Not a lot of dangers so far other'n gettin' trapped in thin ice, I don't think. Just be careful with yer steps and focus on walkin' inland. I'll see if I can make my way over to you too.

Oh, also-- if you see a bunch of snake-lookin' things milling around, don't worry. They're friendly.

[walkietalkie]

Snake-looking things. Got it. ❰ this is so-... so jarring, honestly, and yet somehow entirely familiar. walking in a place she's never been, talking to wade about weird shit she might encounter. like it happened once in a dream. or maybe like she's just woken up from a nightmare into the real world again, finally.

it's a lot to process. for now, she doesn't even really try. ❱

Did anyone else-... ❰ -make it out, she was going to say. did anyone else make it out of haven? but that makes it sound like they died there and she doesn't want to go there. not yet. she does have to ask: ❱ Travis? ...Jesse?

[ishotyouuu]

[It's an appropriate question, maybe even an obvious one. But it catches Wade by surprise nonetheless. For a few seconds there is nothing but radio silence, as Wade struggles to find the right tone.]

Haven't seen 'em. [He winces at the forced casualness in his voice.] You're the only one I've seen from... from that group.

[Wade swallows and adds, a little unnecessarily:] Who knows? Maybe they're comin' in on the next boat.

[walkietalkie]

❰ ...shit. the silence is honestly all she needed. he could've changed the subject and she still would've picked up on the very obvious fact that they're the only ones who made it here so far. (although answering aloud does get rid of the possibility that the silence was because they were here but died horribly.)

clem can't help but wonder if there are other places they could've ended up... or if it's just this or nowhere. or back with yao. a chill slithers down her spine despite her jacket, and her free arm wraps under her chest, hand tucking under the elbow of the arm still holding the walkie-talkie up to hover near her face. ❱

Yeah, ❰ she agrees after a much shorter pause of her own. this is weird. awkward, almost. clem wants to stop making depressing smalltalk, but at the same time, she has so many questions without answers. like: ❱ How long have you been here? ❰ but that's not really the question, is it? ❱ How long-... since I disappeared in Haven? ❰ how long since he's seen her? ❱

[ishotyouuu]

[Asking the uncomfortable questions right at the outset, huh Clem? Wade supposes, cynically, that it couldn't have been as easy as simply sharing a cliched Hallmark reunion moment with his little Amazon. Not after all that's happened. There's another few seconds of silence as he has an internal debate over how much he should tell her.]

It's been... a few years, kiddo. Got sent to a place called Sol Raveh for a while, and then I ended up here. Food selection ain't what I'm used to, but hey-- at least I can work on my tan.

[A joke, and not a very good one. He decides to leave out how he ended up in each world in the first place.]