lifeaftr | January Intro: I Know the Winter's Getting Colder

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January Intro: I Know the Winter's Getting Colder

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.

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.

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!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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Out of the frying pan, into the fire, I guess.

[Gobbet has simultaneously thought very much and very little of her friends since arriving here. On the one hand, attachments were dangerous and impractical in her line of work, so she generally avoided making them. On the other, she never expected to actually lose any of them and was thoroughly attached to at least two of the five in their group. The knowledge - or at least the suspicion - that things were just on hold back home made it seem so...unreal, anyway.]

What kind of danger?

[Better or worse than the death of the sun?]

...ah. It was...

[He's a little hesitant, but really he's not sure why; none of it is a secret. It's just strange, perhaps, to talk to someone who was outside of it again.]

...we had been locked in a building, and told that we would have to murder one another to be allowed out.

Oh shit. That's rough, buddy.

[She knows it's not her place to ask, but she kind of wants to know if he did any murdering. It's not like she's going to judge him - her body count is pretty high, after all.]

You don't have to murder anybody here. It is, in fact, strongly discouraged.

[Gobbet laughs, stroking the head of the black rat in her lap. Yeah, the Storyteller probably wouldn't endorse murderparties.]

Yes, well. We managed to come to an agreement with our captors. There were no permanent deaths.

[Which is very much not the same as saying "nobody died". Asgore smiles a little at the joke, though he doesn't quite dredge up a laugh.]

I had assumed as much.

[Aw, come on. Not even a giggle?]

[Gobbet leans back a little, considering Asgore with an amused grin.]

[Now's the time to bring up the sweater. Calculated.]

Okay, tell you what, last question from me and then you can pick the conversation topic: Be it questions, casual, or just telling me to get lost.

You seem far too down in the dumps for a dude wearing a "Mr. Dad Guy" sweater. You okay?

[Asgore's smile goes a little melancholy.]

Oh, do not worry about me. It has simply been a...full day.

[Honestly, being randomly dropped into another world would have been manageable on its own. Upsetting, yes, but manageable. This, though...

Too many people who know him.]

[Gobbet regards him curiously. If he wanted to talk, he would. She assumes, anyway. That's how she works, so it must be how the world works.]

A lot of those coming up, unfortunately. But a deal's a deal. Any questions for me?

[Or do you need some space to digest?]

...gosh, I'm not sure I even know enough to know what my questions are yet.

[It's definitely a lot to digest. But Asgore scrubs a hand over his eyes and then glances around at the general gathering, trying to re-focus.]

Where does everyone stay? This looks like it's mostly a Jormun camp.

Mm. Off the mainland there's a chain of islets with a bunch of cottages and shacks on them. None of the uninhabited ones are in good shape. Hell, a lot of the inhabited ones don't look so hot either. But they're usually safe from disasters and can only be reached by mana pools. Or boats, I guess. Just find one that doesn't have anybody's stuff in it and it's yours. Or bunk with someone willing to bunk, if you're the type who likes that sort of thing.

[Gobbet smiles weakly.]

There's also a compound that used to belong to killer monkeys. It's safe now, but it's right next to a door that leads to slow and painful death in a dark cave system. Not a glowing endorsement, I know, but it's an option.

[There's also the camp on Monsun but 1) she's a tad bitter about them accidentally muscling her out of her own camp and 2) she has a feeling Monsun will disappear soon. Something the Storyteller had said about impermanence in the archipelago. So she fails to mention it.]

Is there something living in the cave?

[Not that Asgore would ever, ever want to make a cave his home ever again. But he's not terribly opposed to just being near one.]

It's...what's down there isn't really...alive. More like. Reanimated.

[She sighs, taking a sip of wassail to warm her tongue and calm her nerves. It's weird to her, being residually afraid of something that happened and resolved itself. Is this what trauma is?]

[It's lame. She doesn't recommend it.]

Down in those caves there's a virus that...it turns you to crystal, from the inside out. Only, the crystals come to life after they kill you and lumber around all huge and faceless, seemingly with no other purpose than to infect anyone who goes down there.

[She might still be down there, come to think of it. Her last dead body, crystallized and wandering and waiting to infect someone else.]

There's a huge stone door in their way, though. They won't come crawling out of there any time soon. I just couldn't live there because it's got a bad memory attached to it, but it's perfectly safe otherwise.

...mmmm. Like crystal zombies.

[Asgore's face seems drawn; maybe he has some personal experience with zombies?]

Well. That is good. Perhaps some people in the area would not be a bad thing, if only to keep watch.

Better you than me, Goatdad.

[She pulls the nickname from his appearance and shirt, not from any personal experience with him. She's in the habit of giving folks nicknames they didn't ask for, Asgore, sorry to say.]

[Gobbet stretches, sending the black rat on her shoulder into the folds of her clothes. A quiet squeak implies a second rat somewhere, perhaps in one of the box pouches at her belt, but if it's there it fits too naturally to be noticed.]

Anything else?

[He snorts at the nickname, smiling a little. It sounds like something Alex might have called him.]

Ah, yes. Is there some kind of community garden here? It seems like such a thing could be useful, if we have edible plants around.

Uh...I don't know of any, but that doesn't mean there isn't. I had a personal garden and I know Muffet has one. I think there were plans for a farm at some point, you'd have to see if the message is still on the rock.

[Ah, right, the rock.]

We have a community billboard of sorts. It's just a huge rock with some chalk nearby.

...oh, that seems useful!

[He appears completely genuine.]

I shall have to check it. Thank you very much.

No problem. I don't use it much myself, but I don't have much to say that I don't just say in person. For better or worse, I guess.

[Credit where it's due, she knows that backfires every so often.]

Anything else?

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January Intro: I Know the Winter's Getting Colder

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