January Aftermath: What Would It Take

[lifeaftr_mods]

JANUARY AFTERMATH: WHAT WOULD IT TAKE

Who: Everyone!
What: The sun is reborn; time to recover
When: January 28th and beyond
Where: Everywhere! Ensō, Monsun, Chol, and the Islets
Warnings: Please mark any additional warnings as needed!

Quiet Like The Snow


Come the sunrise on the 28th, the sun will launch itself into the air with a victorious shriek, its wings trailing plumes of fire behind it. The phoenix takes flight, reborn from the ashes. Though not all the shadowy beings have gone from the world, the reappearance of the sun is enough to make them slink off into the shadows- a fight for another day...or another evening.

Now, it's time for the hardest part. Now, it’s time to clean up.

Chol

The grounds of Chol have reshaped seemingly overnight- as the morning light filters down across the land, characters will find most of the land has been blackened and charred, with many fires still raging inland. The Jormun will assist anyone who hasn’t yet to the western coast of the island; where not nearly as much of the phoenix’s impact has been felt, and a safe corridor of passage to the mana pool resides.

The shores of Chol are littered with corpses, both shadowy and scaled, along with an even smattering of crumpled paper and splotched inkstains. Despite the triumph of the fight, it did not come without its costs. The Jormun gather their dead and prepare to mourn them quietly. Those who perished in the fight will not see the sunrise from this unique perspective, watching the murk of the night tint to soft, milky yellow and pink, and then to a glorious new day.

Munin will greet the survivors with a mixture of solemnity and relief, thanking them profusely for their help. There is not much more that her people can offer you, at this point - they must grieve their dead, and she must return to the sea to prove that she has cemented her worth as a leader in the eyes of the other Jormun - but that does not mean that your stories will part forever.

Ensō and Monsun

Ensō too, has seen its far share of battle. The full scale of just how much the Storyteller had kept at bay around the temple is revealed through the copious piles of shadowed corpses, several wane Jormun already at work on removing them. They assure anyone who seeks to assist that below the ocean, there is effective manners of disposal; such as large, active volcanoes to demolish the flesh before any untoward magics can give them new life.

Heat will slowly begin to return to the island, with slow coming to a halt and ice beginning to thaw. Whilst rugging up is still a requirement, characters will be capable of making their way back to the mostly unscathed islets to rebuild their own lives, or wherever else they may call home.

A notable change to Ensō, however, is as easy to find as looking up. Literally. Several floating land masses can now be seen high above the island itself- too far for anything distinguishable to be made out and too far for those capable of flight to reach. Those who watch these masses may be interested in how, over the course of a day, these strange masses seem to change shape entirely- almost as if they were simply a very unique cloud coverage that seemed ready to become a permanent fixture overhead.
Much like Ensō, Monsun sees little wear, past the additions of many felled creatures. Again, a party of Jormun are slowly navigating their way about the island-- though if they get to the corpses before Monsun’s native meat eaters do is anyone’s guess. In the stillness of the coming days, the usual monster attacks will seemingly dwindle to nothing-- even a god of Balance seems to understand the need for recuperation.

Additionally....
Though the Storyteller is once again nowhere to be found, exhausted adventurers will find three MREs in their packs, for anyone who could use a day off finding and preparing food. Currently, it's the best they can offer- though the Jormun promise that they will have their own spread to share after finishing collecting their dead.

---

Event Specifics

[ ♆ ] The 30th will see the return of any who may have died throughout the duration of the event. All revived characters will awaken at the Storyteller’s temple; remember, if your character has died, let us know here!

[ ♆ ] Item trades with the Jormun can be found on the OOC plotting post here! The number of Jormun available will dwindle through the following weeks, leaving entirely on the 10th of February. Even if you were only recently accepted, you are free to participate!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[hellawrath]

Listen, Lup gets it. She's been moving around more than she probably should, scouting the area around the temple for leftover trouble, looking for cool shit, dropped weapons, whatever. Just to be outside, just to be doing something. To soak in the sunlight of a new day. She knew there'd be one, never doubted that they'd win, that this wasn't the end of this world, but it's still, it's a load off her shoulders for sure. Off everybody's shoulders. It's nice to soak in that, too.

So while she's sympathetically horrified at the sight of Tim, she's not really surprised to see him hanging around outside despite looking like he should be laying down for about a month. Lup edges closer, the careful hunched movements of someone trying to achieve the impossible feat of not jostling her midsection while walking. Bandages show through the torn remnants of her coat. Her arm's in a sling too, fixated tightly against her body. Her complexion ranges only slightly above 'ghostly', which is kind of ironic, in a dumb way nobody finds amusing. It's honestly such a stupid idea for her to be on her feet.

Despite all that, she greets him with a lopsided grin, wry and commiserating at once. "You look like shit. Rough night?" Somehow she really doesn't like seeing him this beat up, feels kind of a nagging concern that's weirdly out of proportion, considering she barely knows this dude. But it's not like she likes seeing anyone hurt. Might as well check how badly off he really is.

[postictal]

Looks like they're both wrecks for the moment. Practically symmetrical. Someone get them a trophy, for most looks served in 2018.

He can either be a hypocrite or play along in weary solidarity. He's had his fill of hypocrisy, he thinks, for the time being, particularly since it only sees you laid out across the ground with a freshly bruised cheekbone and a fire lit up in your insides, reminding you why it's a particularly bad idea to sass people while you're injured.

He doesn't smirk the way she does, but somehow it elicits a huff of acknowledgment, something almost bitterly akin to a laugh.

"Yeah, I was real busy, uh...partying. All night."

In terms of humor, that's probably not his best. So sue him.

"Looks like you didn't get off scot free yourself."

[hellawrath]

Hey at least her face doesn't look like somebody step danced on it. She may not have much in terms of energy and like, range of movement, but she's still got her devastatingly good looks. That's not nothing.

At his observation, she shrugs her not fucked up shoulder. "You should see the other guy." Not because she got back at the creature that attacked her or anything, she was way too busy bleeding out, but the Drifter cut it up good. "Shit, I can't believe I missed a party this good," she quips with a wave at the state of him. The bar for humor is pretty low currently, it's fine. She casually leans against the temple wall next to him. Sitting down is kind of a big decision, because once she does she's not gonna get up for a while.

"How're the kids?" First things first. She saw at least one of them around the temple not long ago, but it was still night then, so better make sure.

[postictal]

Sitting down is, indeed, something of a trial when you've got abdominal injuries and the wrong movement might tear things open anew. He's just kind of resigned himself to keep moving, which might not be the most healthy choice, but is certainly the most productive one.

She defaults to something he can respond to easily in turn, at least.

"Alive," he says, quietly if undeniably relieved. Some of the tension slakes off his frame, his good shoulder dropping. "They made it through all right. They're...they're tough."

[hellawrath]

She shares his relief and nods, chuckling a little, though the painful twinge in her side puts a stop to that real quick. "Yeah, they are." Does he know just how tough? What they've been through, how many different ways they've died and kept going because there was no other option? Not for the first time she finds herself curious about him and his relationship to the kids. And maybe it's a little more her business these days than the last time they talked about it, but right now she's super not into whatever dumbass suspicion tango that conversation would turn into because being protective of them means not spilling their secrets. They're just chilling and commiserating, here. Maybe she can just ask Chara some time, like a normal fucking person.

"God knows what we'd do if we got kids in who don't know how to look out for themselves." Not like there's an abundance of grade-A parental figures around.

[postictal]

Oh, but does he know.

A little too much, in fact. More than he has any right to. It wasn't a consensual, earnest attempt to understand them; it came like a bolt of lightning, searing away the barriers they both threw up by default, imbuing a sense of connection and resonance that neither of them wanted and neither of them needed.

The most he can do now is try and make up for that - and use it well.

"What about Ren? She's...you guys're looking after her, right?" She lives with them and everything. Hopefully she just stuck to the temple for the duration of the perpetual night, but it pays to make sure.

[hellawrath]

At the mention of Ren, Lup's expression grows softer, ears dropping affectionately much like his shoulder had. She's not surprised he's asking after Ren, pretty much everybody who knows her would wanna know she's okay.

"Oh yeah, she's fine. Did you see her doodles? She covered the whole dang temple with 'em, it's like the Neverwinter Met in there." And you better believe Lup sounds real damn proud of it. "She stuck to the temple all week, like, she's good at staying safe. She... I think she must've been scared as hell, but she didn't complain or anything, just kept drawing and looking out for folks." Looking out for Lup, too, when she was hurting and miserable, cheered her up for real like only Ren could.

[postictal]

He has no idea what Neverwinter Met is, but it sounds like that's probably a good thing. It's not hard to tell that Ren's wormed her way into Lup's heart just the same. But then again, it's hard not to like her.

"...good," he breathes out, soft with relief. "Good. There was a lotta bad shit out there, and she - good. She and the other kids should've been safe."

The other kids. But were they safe, any of them? Fuck if he knows. He still doesn't know what he might've done while he was out of it. Who else he might've hurt.

[hellawrath]

Lup just nods, they're both a pretty stark reminder of just how bad the shit out there really was. It's a real relief to have seen a lot of the kids safe in the temple, even if she hasn't gotten some kinda headcount yet to know who maybe didn't make it. Newt, Shepard, Drifter, Brian, way too many people she hasn't seen in a while and it eats at her. Just another reason to be out here.

"So what bad shit went to town on you, specifically?" That's how you commiserate, right? And there's more of that weird worry, like she should've been there to stop him getting hurt quite so badly.

[postictal]

"Got slapped around by a couple things. Y'know how it goes." That is not, technically speaking, a lie. That's completely and wholly what happened, technically. It's just not the full story - leaving out the part where he donned a mask and started going after people who were just trying to live their lives in this hellhole, and got more than a little stabbed for the trouble.

But no one needs to know that. Not unless they've figured it out for themselves.

[hellawrath]

"Yikes," she offers emphatically with a grimace. She knows how that goes for sure. "Are you like, some kinda fighter? Or why were you out there getting dunked on in the first place?" He doesn't really have the build for a tank, is the thing. She kinda thought anyone who couldn't fight would stay safe in the temple.

[postictal]

“I’m dead weight, mostly,” he deadpans, equal parts self-deprecating commentary and rueful admission. “I had a lotta flammable stuff on hand, so I set fire to what I could. It helped, for the most part.”

He’s absolutely selling himself short, but being a lowkey arsonist isn’t something he’s in the habit of broadcasting.