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

[catpiper]

No.

[Hello, complete stranger!

And holy shit she has not. The reactions of the people around her gave her cause for concern and she's avoided the drink for some time now. Boiling hot and boiling hot seem like a dangerous combination.]

It's good?

Re: c - A cute approaches!!!

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ Ignore those people. They are wrong and weak. Magnus is absolutely the best example for the best choices, specially when it comes to food. ]

S' really fucking good!

[ Magnus, language. ]

I can't feel my face anymore!

[ He is dying, but it's a good death. ]

[catpiper]

That's because your hands aren't there.

[Where is there? She means his face. That's why you can't feel it. Gosh. She holds her hands up to her cheeks to demonstrate how he can feel his it again.]

You can feel your face if you do that and-

[HERE WE GO. Might as well use the word he did. It probably means something good? That's what she gathered, in any case.]

It's fucking nice. It makes you warm.

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ He watches this whole scene, this whole play-by-play of face feeling. And his response is: ]

Fair enough.

[ But back to the awesome food. ]

You should have some of this, though, it's really good. Try it!

[ Oh, Magnus, don't kill the girl. ]

[catpiper]

[That's right, fair enough. She helped the bean figure out where his face is and learned a new word in the process. This is a great day.

Still, she's not exactly brave in any respect and the drink in his hands is concerning. He says it's good though and it might be.

And all that pointless treasure hunting did make her cold so-

C'est la vie.]

Okay.

[And she grabs some poor fool's cup-whoever had been sitting there before and sorta holds it out? Nice. ]

Does it taste like the ocean?

[Just try it?? Gosh. Stop harassing this poor man.]

[proficienciesouttheass]

Huuuh, maybe? Not...really. But it's good!

[ He's fine! She's nice! He's always okay with meeting new people.

He holds out his bowl, friendily "clinking" it with hers. ]

Cheers!

[ And down the hatch. The rest of the whole thing.

Don't do that, Ren. For the love of all that his holy, don't do it. ]

1/2

[catpiper]

[She's gonna do it and copies the way he gulps he down, drinking the remainder from that little cup.

And it's hot on her tongue. The temperature itself making her shake her head before the actual heat starts to just-]

2/2

[catpiper]

[It's hot. It's too hot. She's not used to things like this okay?? The elves and Guzma have given her a taste of real food and that's grand. Super good. Fantastic. But before this she looked for pieces of food on the ground that were only kinda moldy so this-

She hates this and sits in absolute silence, unwilling to move because her face is on fire. Everything is fire. Her entire body is going to burst into flames-she's 200% sure of this. Little did the scientists know, spices would kill her before her disease did.

And she does the only logical thing one would do in this situation. She grabs a handful of snow and shoves it into her mouth. Then another batch of snow to press right into her face are you proud of yourself Magnus???]

We ate fire. That's-They put the fire in this thing.

[Somehow!!! Someway!! There is literal fire in this meal.]

the poor kid

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ Magnus's face is on fire too! Like, 5 times on fire, since that's how many bowls of this thing he's eaten. But he's okay with spicy food and it's a nice comfy feeling!

But he just watches her...eat...some snow? ]

Holy shit. [ He's kind of amused. Since, you know, it's kinda funny. Not kids getting hurt, just, the whole thing she did. ]

Hey--not, ah, into spicy food?

Water doesn't help, you need something else, like, huh, bread or milk or some shit.

[ Magnus, you ass. ]

she deserves it its fine

[catpiper]

[Let her live? The snow is her new best friend, even if he's right and it's doing little to ease the fire raging in her mouth right now.

But she half listens to him and presses a handful of snow to her cheeks instead. That gives her some instant relief.]

I don't have that-[NO BREAD NO MILK JUST SNOW]-That stuff's not on this island.

[EVERY WORD HURTS?? And she decides to stop talking, moving her glass so it rests closer to him. En-heckin-joy friend. Take her portion-not that was hers to begin with. Germs?? What are those?? It's fine.]

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ Magnus is too strong! Germs don't got shit on him! ]

--wait, there's no milk and bread in this whole island?

[ What the fuck! ]

[catpiper]

I haven't seen it.

[Which is to say, Ren feels like her suffering will never end! And she's still pushing snow against her cheeks to Stop The Pain 2K18. Why is it like this? How can this guy drink so much?

She hates this.]

But people on the other island have that kind of stuff.

[Taako and Lup can help her out. She is 200% sure of that. Please save her. Where's the bread??]

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ Oh, Magnus is fine now, because he's a big burly strong man with awesome cook friends, but just want until this mushy soap thing makes its way through him.

Just you wait. ]

Other islands?

[catpiper]

[Instead of saying a word because the fire in her mouth has yet to quell, she starts drawing a big circle in the snow beside them with her finger and some small islands further away from the big one. The small ones have some finger doodle houses that look like they were made by a preschooler. Horrible. She's a bad artist on a good day and it turns out snow isn't the best tool to give directions with, so it's coming out extra bad.

There's that other weird island too, but she hasn't seen it with her own heathen eyes.]

It's like that.

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ A hand on his knee, he leans in to look at the...makeshift snow map thing. ]

Huh...

[ Interesting. ]

What's over there? [ He points out at the little holes she made to be houses. ]

[catpiper]

Homes. That's what those are called.

[She couldn't fit them all on the snow map. What a tragedy. She pushes her finger deep into the snow to make a house 'close up'-which is to say, she draws square with a triangle on top. Nice. Some of the shacks lacked even that, but it gets her point across.]

Like that.

[proficienciesouttheass]

Oh. Right.

[ He knows what...you know what, nevermind.

Leaning over with his hand on his knee, he scratches at his chin, looking over the map and thinking. ]

Are there other people around there, then? More fish people, or...?

[catpiper]

There are lots of people in that place. They all have kind smiles and say 'how are you?'. You'll be happy there.

[Hello, Ren is part of the new island homeowner's association? Are you sold on Enso's luxurious accommodations and neighbors yet??]

I haven't seen a fish. They're all humans and elves and cats.

[There might be a random fish-snake person there?? She has no idea.]

[proficienciesouttheass]

Oh, that sounds nice.

[ He doesn't register the elves part as weird, since...he just thinks he's somewhere else in Faerun.

Anyway, now he has an objective, after he gets what he needs from these fish people! He makes a mental checklist. ]

Guessing you're from there?

[catpiper]

I came from somewhere else, but now I'm from there-that place is where I live.

[She sounds happy about it? Like being kidnapped and whisked away to an unknown island is the best thing that could've happened to her. Yeah, she's gonna say she's from there. Maybe if she pretends it's possible, she might be able to stay.]

It's a good island.

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ Well, she doesn't seem too bothered. There must be a reason for it, he guesses. Each one to their own!]

Cool cool.

[ He looks at the makeshift map again.]

How do I, huh, go over to that there island? Are there boats?

[catpiper]

You throw a flower into the water and you get to go home-that's how it is.

[Doesn't that make The Most Sense Mango Icesides? Probably not. At the residual fire in her mouth is starting to wear off, making it easier to talk without fistfuls of snow against her face.]

I can show you.

[proficienciesouttheass]

Oh, yeah, that'd be awesome. Thanks.

[ Adding another empty bowl of Fire Soup to the pile, time to follow a little girl to a pond and to teleport into another island using a flower.]

[catpiper]

[That's right.

Follow her, mango magnus mighty burnsides, to the flower pit so she can show you a whole new world, shining shimmering splendid.

And guide him she does. Get ready to live the thug island life.]

[proficienciesouttheass]

[ Nothing more badass than a bit burly dude with an ass following around a small girl through an island of snakefish people.]

So, huh...got a name?