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

c

[yourattention]

It's from the Storyteller.

[His face is shadowed in the hood of his poncho, but Connor takes it down once he's spoken because that's probably a bad impression to make on someone. He doesn't want to come off as creepy, he just wants to be helpful-ish.]

The growler has wassail in it and necklace is like a night light. Dunno what the other thing is, but the Jormun might know. You wanna come to camp and ask?

[Because he's not gonna . . . force someone to come with him, but he knows that there's fire in camp and also other people, who are probably better equipped to answer any questions this person has.]

[budgetmage]

The... Storyteller? Moon, I thought that was a dream.

All right, so wassail and.... a night light is a light that only operates at night, I assume?

[ She doesn't response to his request verbally, waiting for a response to her question, but she does begin to pack the things back into her pack. Very quickly and methodically - she's done this before. ]

[yourattention]

Yeah. It's for when the sun dies.

[Connor has learned to deal with this situation by saying the most impossible shit like he's talking about what he ate for breakfast, so he figures he better get that sun thing out of the way. If there's gonna be a freakout, it can happen while they're going to camp.]

Name's Connor. You can call be CJ if you're that kind of person.

[CJ is pronounced like "siege," rather than letters.]

[budgetmage]

Oh, so it's for when-

[ Wait. Wait. She feels like she just heard something unbelievable there. ]

-the Sun dies!? The Divine Sun!? That doesn't... happen!

[ Yeah the name gets lost somewhere in this. The Divine Sun doesn't die - one of the three Divinities cannot just die. ]

[yourattention]

You have to die to be reborn. [He says it quietly, but very sincerely.] The sun will come back brand-new after the darkness, don't worry.

[That's almost verbatim from something one of the Jormun told him, but he figures nobody has to know that but him. They're good words, it doesn't matter who said them first.]

[budgetmage]

That doesn't happen! It's not... not a thing! None of the Divinities do that!

Even if it was a thing! If the Sun was gone, who would rule his domains!? Fire, light... The land would die!

[ Look if she's being loud now... this is really ur fault not hers. ]

[yourattention]

[He kind of wants to be like "It's only a week, chill out even if you die we're all stuck in this hellhole and you'll come right back," but he also recognizes that's Really Fucking Rude. Why being nice so hard. Why do people choose to be nice if it's this hard.]

Look. Wherever you're from? This isn't where you were and the rules are different here. [He's trying not to sound annoyed, but he kinda is because he's mostly out here as a favor to the Jormun.] Right now, the sun is dying. It's going to bring darkness for a week, and yes. A lot of things will probably die, including some of us, which is why I'm trying to take you to people who can explain better.

[Because he does understand that some people actually Enjoy Living and therefore might want to Not Die even if he's kind of "eh" on the subject.]

1/2

[budgetmage]

The- The rules are-

[ Okay. OKAY. Okay. ]

All right, I think I. Want to hear this better explanation then.

[budgetmage]

[ And then, muttered very quietly- ]

Sorry. And thanks.

[yourattention]

Don't worry about it. I had a freak-out about Mickey Mouse when I first got here, so you know. Everyone gets one good freak-out for free and then you owe me a drink.

[Is he joking? Is he serious? It's very hard to tell with Connor because his serious sounds an awful lot like sarcasm. He is walking backwards so he can face Isette while he walks toward camp, though. Because eye contact and other important things for appearing friendly.]

Do you have any questions that aren't related to the sun before we get to camp? Like "where are we" or "where can I get a flare gun" or "if I really wanted to go to a barren desert wasteland, how would I go about doing that"?

[budgetmage]

How about... "What is a flare gun?"

"Where are we" is a good one, too. [ She might be. Making a joke. But if she is she's still also half-serious. What is a glare gun? ]

[yourattention]

This is Chol. It's island number 3 - island number 1 is called Ensō and it's where most of us actually live. Island number 2 is called Monsun. It sucks, 0/10 do not recommend.

[Because that's the easier question. The other question requires another question to answer:]

As for what a flare gun is . . . do you know what a gun is?

[It might sound condescending, but he genuinely wants to know. He's learned that anyone who asks a question like "what is a flare gun" might not know what any of the words mean and he's trying to be better about starting at the beginning rather than muddling his way through backtracking.]

[budgetmage]

A gun? [ Isette wracks her memories. Her world, Alvion, certainly doesn't have these "guns"... but she is also friends with Sawyer. She thinks she remembers him mentioning the word. ]

It's some sort of weapon, right? [ She doesn't sound sure of that. ]

[yourattention]

Yup. Long-range weapon that uses combustion to fire a projectile.

[And people told him playing video games would never be useful. Joke's on them, he only knows about different kinds of weapons because of video games and that's been coming in handy here.]

A flare gun is the same basic concept, except the projectile is basically a, uh. Do you know what a firework is?

[budgetmage]

[ Isette pauses for a moment, and holds out a hand. About ten feet over their heads, there's a burst of red light - it looks like a miniature firework. ]

Like that?

[yourattention]

Yeah! [He looks extremely excited for a moment, before being slightly panicked.] Don't. Don't do that again, though? Red fireworks mean danger, blue fireworks are a call for help. I mean, it probably wasn't high enough that people are gonna be worried but for, like. Future reference and shit.

[He should have maybe explained that beforehand, but also Connor has known magic exists for like (2) months and is very much not used to the idea that people can just. Make fireworks!! He is a normal-ass boy from normal-ass Pennsylvania with no special powers and the learning curve for the supernatural has been Steep.]

[budgetmage]

[ . . . Oh. WHOOPS. ]

Ah - all right. Sorry.

Red's just the easiest color. After white. Nobody really likes white fireworks, though.

[yourattention]

Nah, my bad. I'm not really - they sent me out here because I have rope.

[Connor shifts something around under his poncho and produces a considerable length of rope.]

Last ditch failsafe if one of you guys fell in, but I'm not usually the person out here greeting newbies.

[budgetmage]

Greeting- ah.




My name's Isette by the way.

[yourattention]

Welcome to the infinite hellscape of the not-actual afterlife, Isette. [This. This is why he doesn't greet newbies.] We're headed to camp, which is where the Jormun are living temporarily -

[Shit. Wait. He knew he was forgetting something.]

- the Jormun are merfolk. Just, by the way.

1/2

[budgetmage]

Merfolk are real? I thought they were just stories told by drunk elven sailors.

I've seen no archeological evidence that-

2/2

[budgetmage]

[ She stops herself. ]

....Right. Different... world.

[yourattention]

I dunno if they would call themselves merfolk, but they live in the ocean and shit so. [SHRUG.] If you wanna ask them questions or whatever for science you can as long as you're not being rude about it.

[That's code for "don't ask Connor, because he doesn't know." Things tend to happen around him and he just sort of accepts them without asking too many questions. He's just not naturally curious.]

[budgetmage]

I'm never rude. [ Lies. ] I've got to ask them about this Sun business first, though.

[yourattention]

You're gonna want to talk to Munin, specifically, if you wanna know about that. Munin's the leader of the Jormun, so she's kinda . . . fielding our stupid sun questions, I guess?

[That's not the most flattering way to explain it, but Connor's not great at explaining things nicely.]