lifeaftr | March Adventure: Swim with the Current and Float Away

NEW ISLAND: AI'TUOH

Who: Anyone who feels brave...or particularly lawful
What: A city worth exploring, and a people worth meeting
When: March 10th and onward
Where: Ai'tuoh
Warnings: The themes you might associate with strict punishment and rule-based dystopias will abound, along with nonconsensual drugging/sedation for those found guilty in the streets. Otherwise, mark as needed!

The Overview: Ai'tuoh
The dawn of the 10th will see the appearance of the promised island on the horizon. The smooth, even planes of city walls rear across the expanse of sandy beach, but beyond that, no particular discerning characteristics can be immediately glean. That same morning, characters will awaken from a brief dream, wherein the Storyteller will advise that the new island accessible via mana pool - and they suggest, with some trepidation, that you do not make the location of said mana pool on the new land immediately obvious to the natives. It's clear that something has put them on edge, though they've yet to say what.

Welcome, adventurers, to the island of Ai'tuoh.

Our City, Our Rules
Ai'tuoh is home to a sprawling city, built of smooth, sandy stone. Its architecture is simple, precise, and uniform, valuing utility above all else - function to the exclusion of form. The homogeneity of the people of Ai'tuoh extends beyond the similar, monochrome spectrum of their apparel. Despite the gradations of skin color and the subtle shifts in the shades of their hair - all falling within established limits, of course - they all appear to be more or less human. But most striking of all is the stern warning emblazoned across the city's gates. It translates as follows:

May those who violate our law be cleansed in the Standing Water.

The Unerring Law of the people of Ai'tuoh can be found in the library, which contains little besides some five hundred copies of the same dispassionate lists of various laws, most of which you've probably already broken by the time you've entered.

If you plan on stopping by, we'd recommend taking the time to explore the docks first - those that frequent that particular area are rather more forthcoming to travelers. You might find someone sympathetic to your plight, willing to offer some helpful hints.

Holding Cells: Awaiting Your Trial
Those unlucky enough to be caught by the concealed militia taskforce of the city will be sedated on sight of their violation, and will wake in a small, smooth-stoned room. There are no windows, and only one door - and it won't be opening under your duress.

The holding cell into which you've been deposited is beyond barebones; while clean and uniform, it lacks even the basic commodities of a bed and bucket. It seems that there's no need to plan for keeping prisoners in the long term. No one drops by to visit, and no one addresses you if they pass through. Your only company is in your cellmates, who you might be able to hear through the walls, provided you raise your voice over the soft, buzzing hum that permeates the air; a magical suppression field, to ensure that those with particular talents cannot exert them to break the law's hold.

The barracks are sorted into clusters of several buildings, each with variety of cells hidden in secluded pockets. To contrast the uniformity of the city itself, there is no such order here; the buildings are designed to be difficult to break into, and even harder to orient oneself in.

Those who are being kept in holding until their cleansing will not be in complete isolation forever. There are a number of militia who patrol the prison areas to ensure peace is being kept...and some might even be open to conversation.

For OOC information about Ai'tuoh and the city's laws, please see our recent OOC information post!

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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So you don’t know how many you’ve killed. You don’t even remember what their faces looked like or what they were called. [His rage builds like a storm flashing for lightning on the horizon. With it comes a sigh and he shakes his head.]

You don’t even know how wrong it is to take lives like that. That isn’t the good of the many out laying the needs of the few. It’s just murder!

[He takes one step back. He won’t ask to be the sacrifice again. But he will still fight with words for as much information he can.]

You don’t know what happens to them. Anyone who enters this city who wasn’t born with the rules goes to their death. It doesn’t matter what their intentions were. You don’t even bother to wonder why all this happens.

You just work for a city that could turn on you at any rule broken. You would be right here with me if anyone had caught your voice being raised. Any I wrong?

[She steps back yet again as he speaks, calmly listening. His words only strengthen her resolve. It is no wonder to her, now, why it is expressly forbidden to interact with prisoners; they do not even try to understand what it means to serve the most Holy as she does. What one must give up and endure.]

[He is most noble. His intentions are good. Again, she finds herself pitying how misguided he is.]

[Her eyes are dark and she does not interrupt. He ends his judgment with a question, and she will answer it, but not with a judgment in kind. That is not her place.]

You are impure.

[This, in the eyes of her society, renders him wrong in his entirety.]

Do not speak to me of the faces that have seen the Water, outsider. You know nothing. You respect nothing.

We are finished here.

I respect life. My name is Keith. If I don’t make it out of here I’ll keep the secret of your outburst to my grave. No sense both of us getting ‘cleansed’.

[He turns his back to her and stares into his own cell. He needs to do recon and form a plan. His fellow prisoners can tell him what is in their cells and around them.]

Good bye.

[She merely looks away. She would not ask him to do any such thing; to conceal her foolishness would be to lie, and he is already marked for the Water. If she had not spoken to him, she would not have given in to emotions so impure. He is to blame.]

[And yet...]

[It feels wrong. Something feels wrong.]

[She does not examine it. There is nothing she can do.]

[She is tasked to guard him until it is his time to meet the Water; thus, she cannot turn away from him as he turns from her. But she resumes her post, and she watches over him until such is his time.]

May you live and die free from the draperies of your fiction, Keith.

[And then she is silent.]

March Adventure: Swim with the Current and Float Away

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