April Intro: The Flower Ripens in its Place

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: APRIL

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: April 3rd and onward
Where: Ziziphus
Warnings: Mark as needed!

A9: Sow the Seed
Unbeknownst to new arrivals, the archipelago of LifeAftr has recently seen the appearance of a new island, as chosen via voting - and they have been unceremoniously placed there instead of upon Ensō, where most newcomers would typically appear. It's probably for the best that the island of Ziziphus is so outwardly peaceful. There are worse places to find yourself, all things considered. The mana pool glimmers with a greenish light, the stone ring containing that peculiar fluid set firmly into the earth. The surrounding land fits neatly into that general aesthetic: rippling fields stirred by the occasional crisp breeze alternate between amber-golden and rich, verdant green in coloration, and irregular patches of color signify the presence of a great deal of flowers of all sorts.

It's a peaceful scene.

We're sure you're all about to make it go horribly wrong.

B9: Reap the Harvest
For the unluckier, or the more adventurous, something far less tranquil awaits. Perhaps you woke up on this particular map square instead, or you saw fit to journey a little farther, just to see what might happen. In any case, you'll quickly discover that this may not have been the best idea, when an ordinary grassy mound abruptly detaches itself from the ground, hauls itself upright on bristling legs, and starts scuttling near.

SPINDLANKS have now been unlocked in the bestiary.
What might initially appear to be a leafy hillock will very quickly prove to be something far more...mobile, if you get close enough. That clump of grass and red ferns will abruptly hoist itself up on six vine-like tendrils, crawling for its prey like a very large, mossy spider. While it's fully capable of swiping at its foes with its massive, leafy arms, the spindlank's favored method of dispatching its prey is simply to scuttle forth until it's positioned directly above you and drop down. If its weight does not crush you and choking on the clods of earth doesn't smother you, don't worry; the spindlank intends to eat you alive with a set of fleshy jaws set deep in its center, buried somewhere in its underbelly.

For despite their appearance, spindlanks are very much carnivorous. Their size can vary from anywhere between six and ten feet tall when their appendages unfurl entirely. They are, in essence, very large plants, and thus can be easily dealt with, if you can burn them.

Just try not to get overwhelmed.

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All new arrivals will awake with knapsacks, their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can all be found in your acceptance notices!

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

dishonor upon me, dishonor upon my cow

[attheclocktower]

She'd noticed Shion's leg injury of course. She wasn't that careless or unobservant. But she hadn't pushed too much beyond asking if it was alright, that he'd treated it, and whatnot. They'd gotten into unfortunate scraps all the time in the Tower after all. What was a bit more surprising was that Connor seemed to know about it too. Or maybe he was just observant as well.

She gives Shion a brief look that seems to ask if there was anything he needed to tell her, but left it alone otherwise.

Though she did add, "Don't worry about it. We're trying to check t his place out pretty thoroughly. If we stop we'll just be able to take a closer look at everything."

[yourattention]

"What Aster said. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should."

Saying that probably makes Connor the world's biggest hypocrite, but also here he is. Saying it while he awkwardly shifts the strap of his messenger bag around because he's pretty sure friends don't let friends do stupid things like overexert themselves and he'd like to think they're at least friendly if not actual friends. Aster he's less sure about, but he's kind of under the impression that whoever Shion is friends with is a friend of Aster's so that would make them friends-by-proxy.

"I have jerky and shit in my bag, we can also stop to eat if you don't want to just rest."

He learned his lesson about going adventuring without food and water the time he nearly died trying to get to Monsun, so he maybe overpacked and brought more than enough for all of them.

[savedbyasong]

Just because he could do something didn't mean he should, perhaps that was right. After all if he pushed himself too hard he would be more of a burden on both Aster and Ceej, he had to remember his own limits.

Shion smiled at Aster reassuringly. It wasn't so much that he had kept it from her but there hadn't been much to say, he had gotten hurt, Ceej had helped him. It wasn't a major injury, he hadn't died. He could keep up.

He turned his smile on Ceej when he mentioned he had brought food. It was good thinking.

"Okay." He agreed, they both had good points. They shouldn't go all day without resting and eating and also a lot of things would require further study.

They were traveling further into the forest now, Shion figured progress would slow anyways as the undergrowth was thicker here.

"Did you have forests and plants on your world Ceej?"

[yourattention]

"We had a lot of plants where I lived, but you had to leave Philly to get forests proper. I mean, on the planetary scale Earth also has forests but they're disappearing because of deforestation and shit." He's kind of wondering if he should ask the Storyteller for bamboo. Bamboo is more sustainable that trees and it'd make for good building materials. "I don't really recognize a lot of this stuff though."

It's kind of like being in a fantasy world - he sort of recognizes the kinds of trees and the types of moss, but it's just different enough that it doesn't quite match anything he knows.

[attheclocktower]

Aster admittedly tilted her head a bit to the side. "Deforestation?"

That was a new one. She could piece together what the word meant for the parts of it, sure, but the idea was a bit baffling. Why would people try to get rid of forests? They were generally pretty nice, from her experience. Even in the Tower, a lot of the outdoor floors had... usually been a nicer experience?

Some of them, anyway.

At the very least though, she's glad that Shion took to what they were saying. Getting him to take care of himself was always a worry, and sometimes took a bit of effort. But not as much so this time, it would seem.

[savedbyasong]

"Excessive cutting down of forests, for resources or to make room for man made settlements." Shion explained to her, it was sad that the forests in Ceej's world were disappearing.

But it was also still so interesting that his world had different places. Shion had been to different worlds but still the idea that Enso wasn't the only place here. The amount of islands they had seen so far was almost as many as the amount of cities in his world.

Shion was less than convinced that this place was real in any way that he understood. But he was very excited about how full of life it was.

[yourattention]

"And for use in building or manufacturing. That's honestly the bigger culprit - if you don't harvest building materials sustainably, you'll fuck yourself over in the end."

Like Easter Island. If you don't manage what you have, then there won't be any resources at some point and then you just starve because you cut down all the trees. God, he sounded like Evan, spouting all this bullshit about saving the trees.

"If it's possible, I kind of want to transport some of these trees to Enso for that reason? I don't know how well they'd do there, but it seems like something we should think about."

The Storyteller did confirm that Enso was the only island that would ever stay, so. He's realized that whatever he wants access to from the various islands they visit has to be transported back. Ideally, they'd transport the trees themselves but if necessary, he supposes he could just load up the Jackdaw with lumber and it'd achieve the same end result.