lifeaftr | May Intro: We're Going Down, Down

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May Intro: We're Going Down, Down

INTRO LOG: MAY

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: May 4th and onward
Where: Ensō...and above
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Floating Islet: And Sugar, We're Going Down Swinging
While new arrivals may generally be expected at this time of the month, one factor that has continuously failed to maintain consistency is their point of arrival. And indeed, it appears that this month has once again exceeded even the Storyteller's expectations as to where arrivals may take their first steps on this world.

Those who were with us in February will most certainly remember the floating islands hovering far, far above the mainland. While they currently remain inaccessible, they are still steadily floating overhead, shifting appearance as if made of the clouds themselves. And so while waking up on top of the world may be a surprise, at the very least new arrivals will have a bird's eye view of Ensō to enjoy for a time...until they take notice of a rather sinking sensation.

In fact, that sensation would be the island itself, starting to sink out of the sky.

So that's nice.

On a crash course for the ground at F6, the Storyteller will eventually slow the island's progress to the ground below, though a rather profound impact is, simply put, inevitable. Characters with the ability of flight will find the island skimming low enough to reach on their own. Others may wish to utilize their resourcefulness to find an alternate means down.

Or, perhaps, you'll simply deal with whatever awaits you at the crash site.

F6 and Beyond: In An Earlier Round
Thankfully, the Storyteller's intervention will ensure that no one still on the not-so-floating island upon impact will escape with minor injuries at worst, the island itself crumbling to pieces and taking down more than a few thick trees. The pieces of the island will very quickly begin to blacken, crumbling underfoot as the floating island turns to dust. Anyone still aboard may wish to make a very quick departure.

The ripples of this impact, however, are far more significant than two pieces of land bumping up against one another.

Previously, visitors to the floating islands may have experienced some...oddities, during their time above the clouds. For the next few days, these oddities will spread across Ensō itself, leading to some rather awkward scenarios:

[ ♆ ] Some may find their weapons are... behaving oddly, though all are still functional. Weapons, in this instance, may also include fisticuffs, if the intent is to use your fists as a weapon.

[ ♆ ] Equally as irritating are those who find themselves coming down with a severe case of NPCitus: periods of time in which they find themselves incapable of saying more than one or two lines of the same, repetitive dialogue.

[ ♆ ] Equal parts nostalgic and irritating for some are the instances of lag (walking forwards, only to find oneself back where they started), Swimmer's Ear (incapable of movement unless swimming through the air), and clipping (suddenly stuck halfway through the nearest rock are all common, regrettable side-effects).

[ ♆ ] Other unfortunate side-effects may also transpire, as varied and wild as one's imagination.

Though many of these may be hindering or even dangerous in the right situations, they are, for the most part, passive. The Storyteller will assure anyone who asks that these oddities will disappear in the next few days.

You are free to create or utilize glitches you are particularly fond of, though keep in mind that any potential content warnings should be mentioned in your toplevel! You may peruse some of the past glitches here, or create your own along those lines! And a special thanks to our local Donn-mun, Jake (

venesection), for the first glitch on the list!

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.

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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[Well, that was a pretty fucking useless query, wasn't it? Hallucinations never admit to their own nature. They don't so much as acknowledge the fact that their existence is, in general, pretty improbable. But then, most things here are. Floating islands, snake-fish people, water that sends you to an alternate world that requires an Orphic ritual to draw you back out again - all about as strange as something he'd see in a flare of static.]

[Problem is that Ginko keeps...skipping. Like a tape getting rewound. He flickers choppily, like a roaring flame, glitching forward and back.]

[That kinda implies he might not all be there. But then - Tim would laugh, if he had the sense of humor for it - Tim isn't really all there either, huh? Not by a fucking long-shot.]

Thought someone m-might need h... [The words gum behind his teeth. Or maybe that's the admixture of bodily fluids that are struggling to work their way up his throat. Yeah, actually, he thinks it might be that. He retches a stew of blood and bile, stained white with rot, wishing he could muster the requisite energy to wipe the rest of it from his chin and cheek before it tries into a sour-smelling mask.]

[He should be dead.]

[He should get up.]

[He would, really, but he suspects that whatever's holding him together would cease to, if he tried.]

Headed ov...over, [he works out, the words rasping. With the amount of...things that keep leaking out of him, one way or another, the waves of vertigo that keep tearing away what little equilibrium he has, the sheen of cold sweat that's chilling his arms, he has to wonder if he'll die of dehydration first. That'd be a hell of a way to go out when he looks like this. Truly, it would.]

[That rotten stench does have an upside: It keeps the thick scent of blood permeating the air from making Ginko hungry. Which... honestly, he really hates the fact that it needs to.

As it is, though, he can focus on actually helping, however much he can. And refraining from making any comments about how Tim probably needs more help than most at the moment.] Well, now I need you to hold still. I'm going to try to wash some of this blood away, see if I can... can stitch you up.

[It sounds pretty pointless, even as he says it. Like trying to tape a crumbling wall together. But he can't just not try. So he tilts the jug over to splash water over Tim's whole... situation, as gently as he can.]

[Fuck.]

[So someone's gonna try to help him, and that's...that's fair, they've got a lotta people here who try to help everyone else, often to their own detriment, they've got a lotta well-intentioned do-gooders here, and he can't even complain because for once this works out in his benefit.]

'M not dying.

[If he were, he's confident he'd be dead by now. Fortunately, his...state renders him happily oblivious to the fact that Ginko's carnivorous instincts have begun to rear their head. It renders him oblivious to most things besides the fucking molten cauldron of complete and utter agony that has been made of his arm and abdomen.]

Good. Keep that up. [He barely knows, himself, whether that's a joke or not.

His ears press tighter against his head the more clearly he can see the state of Tim's body. Yeah, he... really, really doesn't know how much he can do about this. He's not sure if stitches are going to do much good, after all - he's not sure if they'll be possible. But he absolutely can't just leave Tim like this, dying or not.

He fumbles to wash his hands, then to pull out the makeshift bandages in his pack, torn from the bolt of cloth he'd arrived with. He splashes water over them, too, soaking them through as he glances at Tim again.] I'm going to weave these together so I can cover up the injury on your side, alright? [And... you know, hold his guts in.] I can give you something for the pain, too, if you want it.

[Boy he's glad this didn't happen before Ziziphus. True, he's not sure how much good simple herbal painkillers will do in this case, but any effect they have will be something.]

[Keep that up.]

[Yeah, he'll give it his best. His insides feel pulped into jelly, the body heat bleeding out of him with the heavy scent of decay curling on the breeze. He's distantly aware that he would ordinarily be far more responsive. Even with a blade through his soul, twisting hard enough to splinter it into fragments of broken-glass scarlet, his awareness had practically ramped up in compensation, every grim line in Chara's expression branded in superheated neon.]

[The sky tides in and out in periodic pulses of grayed-out red. Ginko's words occasionally pierce the barrier of unreality that's fallen across him ever since he smacked into a fucking tree and woke up with his middle gaping open and his arm shredded like stripped shavings from a tree.]

[He coughs. A wad of blood-salted phlegm slaps up against the back of his teeth, and he spits it into the grass. He's really ruining the quality of this fucking grass. No one's gonna wanna farm here once he's done with it.]

'm good. Don't think 's a...standard kinda thing.

[He's not really good, but the point is that he doubts there's an easy fix here.]

Okay.

[Literally nothing about this is okay. Even as he's weaving these strips of cloth together, even as he lays the woven sheet over Tim's side and splashes more water over it, he finds himself wondering if he should even be doing this. Would it be better to kill him? Death isn't even permanent here, if Tim died now he'd be free of this and back again before long.

Maybe.

Or it would stick this time. Or, even if Ginko tried to relieve him of his misery, Tim would still remain alive, and in even more pain than before.

So Ginko pulls out another few loops of fabric and lays them over Tim's torso, holding those strips and the woven mat of cloth in place with one hand while sliding the other behind his back.]

Hang on. I'm going to loop some cloth behind your back so I can secure this, okay? Which means I'll have to lift you up a little.

Edited 2018-05-20 01:27 (UTC)

[How fucked up is it that he's got more of an issue with being...handled, foreign fingers moving him around, than he does with the actual attempt to stem his insides from leaking out onto the grass? It's too much like too many things he can remember from white walls and quiet voices behind locked doors. Being told to stand up, sit down, lie back, close his eyes, don't think about the pinch of the needle, you're doing so great today, Timothy, and oftentimes with the added insult of these being framed as suggestions, as if he had a choice.]

[He never does. He doesn't now, he knows, because saying "no" wouldn't be much of an option at all.]

[So he rasps out, eyes listing briefly shut:]

Go ahead.

[A brief nod, and then Ginko leans down to make sure he can keep Tim as steady as possible while he moves him. He would rather not send his guts spilling on the ground if he can avoid it, thanks.

He loops the cloth around behind Tim’s back before setting him back down, and ties off the makeshift patch job as best he can.] That... should hold. [At least for now. Ginko lets out a breath through his nose and closes his eyes for a moment, a momentary, largely futile attempt to block out the sight and scent of blood and rot.]

Let me know if you start... uh. Dying, I guess.

[He was going to say ‘feeling worse’, but, let’s be real, there’s only so much worse he could probably get under these circumstances.]

[He's already dying. He's already not dying. He can't die like this. He'd be dead if he could. Wouldn't he?]

[The sickening lurch in his guts peels a strained, agonized sound out from between clenched teeth before he's settled back on the ground. He's gonna get blood all over the place. All over Ginko's things.]

S...I can clean it. When it's - over.

[When it's over.]

[One way or another.]

Don't worry about that. [Seriously, like... especially not right now.

In what might be an attempt at humor, Ginko smiles slightly and adds,] I'm used to my stuff being bloodstained, anyway. It's not really a big deal.

Mn.

[He can't hold a conversation at the moment, really. Can't manage much beyond a vague, pained sound in the back of his throat, a low rasp of him trying to bite his tongue against the leak of his guts as they presumably fertilize the earth.]

Why're you... [He wets his lips. Tastes copper on this tongue.] Still sticking around...?

[That attempt at a smile fades pretty quickly. Ginko shifts to sit down, shrugging his furry shoulders.]

Seems like most people are doing a hell of a lot better than you, and... unless you'd rather I did, it wouldn't feel right to leave you alone like this. Whether you die or not.

[There's probably a joke hiding there somewhere. Something about free food and you sure you didn't just want in on a buffet, but it seems mean-spirited, and he's not completely sure it's true, either. He's pretty certain, actually, that if Ginko needed to snack on human meat to survive at this point, they'd all know.]

Just my...f-fucking luck, hm.

Seems like you got the short straw this time around.

[Honestly, for all this place's ups and downs, Ginko has no words for how much he appreciates the suppression of those damned cravings. Sure, all this blood smells way better than it should, but he doesn't need it. So he can ignore it. So that's a whole hell of a lot better than it could be.

...He still doesn't like how that smell affects him, though.]

...It's probably not as... necessary, if any of this was, so I'll hold off if you're, uh. Done being manhandled. But, if you don't mind, I might wrap up that arm, too.

[Short straw, except Tim can't ever remember not being dealt anything but the short straw. Whatever it's like to be someone who doesn't consistently achieve the worst and most rotten fucking luck, he'd like a turn at it. 'Cause right now in particular, that sounds damn near blissful.]

[His eyes slip shut, briefly. It'd probably help Ginko, if he felt like he had something to do, wouldn't it?]

Yeah. Yeah, 'kay.

[Okay, good. Good, that gives him one more thing to do. ...And also should block out some of the scent of blood.]

Alright. This should be quicker, at least. [Since he's just wrapping up his arm, and not... you know, trying to contain the entire contents of his abdomen. So he gets started on going through those steps again, cleaning the wound as best he can before he gets to work covering it up.]

...Thanks for, uh... cooperating with all this.

Prob'ly best. Don't want...dirt. 'N my arm.

[He's not super articulate, so you'll have to forgive him. It'd probably be good if I don't end up with an infected arm because I ended up lying in a pool of mud and rot for a couple hours this morning is too many words at the present time.]

[It's also for the best that he can't feel very much of what's going on anymore. There are benefits to becoming so decoupled from yourself that you might as well be numb.]

Right. That'd be pretty bad.

[Not necessarily worse than this already is, but... you know. Tim doesn't need additional horrible crap going on.

Once the wound is as clean as he can make it, he sets about wrapping it up, growling from deep in his chest as his hands freeze and jitter in the air again.] Come on--

You...okay?

[Asks the man who is bleeding out in the dirt, but Tim has never given even half a shit about himself and is not about to start now. Right now, it's difficult to tell in earnest if the stops and stutters are a perceptual error on his own part or if there's something - else.]

[Whatever that "else" might entail, he's not in any position to figure it out for himself. Not currently.]

Fine.

[It's an automatic reply - so much so that when he says it he hasn't even quite parsed that Tim is asking him that, right now. Looking like this.

Once that sinks in, Ginko pauses for just a moment to give Tim a look before resuming his work. He can move a little more smoothly this time, and lets out a soft, relieved breath.]

Been having some... trouble moving. Not going to be collapsing on you or anything, so don't worry about it.

Y'sure?

[Fine. "Fine" never means "fine," because everything is fine and that means that everything is on the verge of complete fucking collapse, which sounds, right now? About accurate.]

[So maybe it is fine.]

D-doesn't...sound okay.

I'm sure. S'just-- annoying, mostly.

[Like hell he's going to complain about this when a basket-woven mat of bandages is all that's holding Tim's guts in. He has a goddamn sense of perspective, here.]

...That should hold.

'Kay.

[His consciousness is...limited, at the moment. He's having trouble parsing what's real, and what else is fucking new? You fucking unstable son of a - ]

[It's over. It's...it's gonna be over.]

We're good?

Yeah. We're good.

[For a given definition of "good". He sets Tim's arm down, gently, and scoots back to give him some space.]

[For now? He'll take it. Bandaged, and no longer in any danger of just - spilling onto the goddamn floor. Yeah. That's about the most he can hope for, and that's gonna be his ideal fucking scenario.]

[Tim closes his eyes.]

[It's impossible to sleep through the pain, but if he can avoid being conscious through it, he will.]

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May Intro: We're Going Down, Down

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