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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It’s the distance from himself that propels him outward, staring absent at the cream-and-periwinkle sky, trying not think about the way he’s hemorrhaging into the fucking dirt, all the thick, clotted red drooling out of him and clumping up the soil. Trying to remember if there was any pain quite like this. Can’t say if it’s better or worse, but it is different and different aches in a way that a freshly snapped leg doesn’t, a knife slammed into the soul doesn’t, a head crackling with static and screaming with neurons shooting off like a firing squad.]

[He’s trying to hold himself in. Good hand falling down across his middle, like that might blot out the worst of it. Can’t mend it, can never mend it, but he’s good at hiding things, at lying, at schooling his features into something blank and neutral.]

[Fuck, it hurts.]

That’ll kill you too. Kills a lotta people.

Maybe [His tone is totally conversational if you ignore the note of pain behind it all. Like they were just two friends talking in a flower filled meadow. Like one of them wasn't bleading out into the dirt from injuries from nowhere, injuries that would have challenged the most experienced surgeon.]

I made a friend once, he fell in love with me [He speaks to the sky] The love wasn't real, just a thought put into his mind by a chocolate. He carved my heart out. I don't regret making friends with him though [A short pause as he turned back to look at Tim and gave him a sad smile]

And I won't ever regret staying with you or being your friend [Maybe he's being prosumptious claiming friendship with Tim when Tim had definitely never... Tim probably thought he was some kind of monster. But he could be friends with Tim even if he didn't return the sentiment] Even if it kills me, I wouldn't blame you for something like that.

[At this point, he won’t bother trying to pick apart whether that statement is literal or metaphorical. Knowing the way things go, he’s willing to bet the former. Doesn’t much matter; the end result was the same. Here’s a kid who’s seen and known too much death and too much of that was his own, and for some reason that’s enough to break a swell for a moment, snap his eyes into the foggied, glazed over kind of focus he can manage.]

Don’t fuckin’ say that. [Doesn’t come out very clear. Comes out mangled. Broken into so many glass shards, smeared across the grass like his bloodied fucking insides. The bile clings slick to the back of his throat, one corner of his mouth seeping red jelly.]

I get it. Okay? You don’t - after a while, y’get tired. Y-you don’t bother keeping yourself...[Something in him gurgles as it feels like his lungs have just deflated, squeezing air out through his pulverized guts, filling his throat with fluid, rank and bitter.]

[Whatever else he’s about to say is lost in the subsequent retch.]

[He barely supresses a wince when Tim speaks, mangled and broken but still... don't say what? That they were friends? That he would not regret staying with him? That he would not blame him? Or everything.

It didn't matter because Tim was retching and Shion sat up again, reaching out to steady him though he moves his hands back the moment Tim seems to be steadier.]

I'm sorry Tim...

[Take the standards you apply to everyone else and apply them to yourself too is too many syllables for him to manage at this particular moment, it turns out. He can't manage much besides the spitting of grayish yellow and stale rot-smelling red into the grass.]

[An involuntary sound creeps out from behind gritted teeth, low and agonized, and his vision whites out for a good thirty seconds until he can speak again:]

D-doesn't...h'f to come at your - at - y'r expense.

It doesn't matter [He shakes his head. His point hasn't come across very well, Tim not being alone is so much more important. More important than if Shion is hurt or not. But Tim is making noises of pain and this... this has to end soon.] Just...

[Anything he can say is laughable, he's so... useless. There is nothing that he can do or say to even ease Tim's agony one little bit] If Rat was here... [And he's glad he's not. Not that it really helps, he has no idea if his Rat is safe or if he is just... elsewhere in a different world, controlled. He has no idea if the Rat from the Tower remained on his world when it was restored, or if he was stolen again.

But there's no Rat here] He would sing for you, to bring you rest [Not even that would help, Shion had never actually heard Rat sing his song of peace, but it wasn't magic, it wouldn't actually help. But it was... something]

[He's got no clue who Rat is, though he can guess. Maybe if he were in a less critical state, he could contextualize a little better. Maybe he shouldn't be trying to prove points about other people's well-being while he's bleeding out into the dirt, because half of him has simply been carved away apropos of nothing.]

[He grunts faintly, slitting one eye open. The sheen of sweat sitting across his skin is only slightly less intolerable than the stink of his own insides painting the grass.]

F...riend of yours?

He's... [How does he even begin to explain Rat. He can't claim them friends, because Rat... Rat saved him but never claimed friendship with him and honestly? Shion can't blame him. He had tried to hard to be equal to Rat in West Town all those years ago but looking back he feels sick with how much of a naive child he had been.]

He's from my first world. I love him. [And that's... about as solid as it gets with Rat. The bare facts, the only things Shion knows for certain.]

[Yeah, Tim would love to be able to decode the nuances here but he’s still bleeding out and he might not be actively dying but it still fucking hurts so he closes his eyes and tries not to concentrate on the way the lack of pressure, the way his viscera is just open to the fucking wide open air, is periodically fuzzing his vision into white-hot emptiness.]

Pray he doesn’t...show up here.

[The people here deal with too much on the daily for Tim to consider it very ethical to wish this upon anyone.]

No... I hope he doesn't. [There had been a Rat at the tower, not his Rat. He knew now. His Rat had been dead. But he was alive now and Shion just hoped that whatever forces stole souls left him alone.

Then again he wasn't sure he wanted Rat left in suspended animation either, his world frozen like the Story Teller said, like Shion was important enough for his whole world to be paused. He wasn't... his world could continue without him, Rat should be able to move on, to forget the unfortunate few months he had had to drag a useless naive brat around.

Best not to think on such things, but he didn't want to think about this moment either. Tim dying, or not dying, hurting, bleeding on the grass in front of him.] I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

[He’s done dying before. He’s done it the way it’s nicest: with blunt, brutal intention and a knife lodged into a crimson projection of his soul. The unkindest part of it was the fact that it was a child’s hand behind the thrust of the blade, and a child’s guilt that chased him into the fucking ether for something like six to eight months before he woke up here.]

[It was short, and relatively painless.]

[So if this is dying, he’d like it to get the fuck over itself and just drop him already. But it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t.]

[His eyes are still open, staring dully into the sky. Not glazed over in death, but simply too exhausted to maintain even the barest courtesy emotion.]

[Until:]

I’m gonna get up. Get outta here.

[He sits, he does wonder if it is over. If Tim's pain is finally gone. But that would be too easy, too kind. Tim speaks again. Shion blinks, wondering if this is a good idea.

Alright he knows it's a terrible idea but he doesn't want to deny Tim anything at this point] Where do you want to go?

Away from th’...’s the island that did this. Get outta the radius.

[And maybe, he reasons, that will fix it. Failing that, he can try and haul ass to a mana pool and hopes that mends this shit, makes it slightly more manageable. Failing that, well - either he begs the Storyteller’s intercession or he buckled down for a long wait.]

[Can’t remember how long this stuff lasted on the islets. Guess he’s about to find out.]

Okay [That... wasn't a bad idea. Getting up might prove to be an awful idea but the plan itself. Might work.

Shion clambered up and reached out, to help Tim. This could be messy. It would be painful for Tim. But if it worked...]

[It's going to be messy, he's certain. But if it means an alternative to lying here and bleeding out onto the grass, then he's willing to try and make that work.]

[This is not the worst thing you've had to do in your life, Tim Wright. This is not the most painful thing you've had to endure. It's just a new and different kind of pain, a more visceral kind of excruciating, and when he rolls to his side and hooks one arm across his middle, the slimy press of his own insides against the underside of his arm swells another lump of bile in his throat, mingling with liquid copper.]

[He spits onto the grass.]

[His vision whites out into a briefly painless white fuzz.]

[He takes advantage of the shock roaring through his middle and tries to get his legs underneath him, before the sensation of being fucking gutted open slams into him like a wall and doubles him over.]

[Shion's arms are there. He knows Tim doesn't like being touched but surely he likes crumbling back to the ground a mess of organs and blood even less. His arms take hold and he feels instantly bad because it is probably hurting more, but he will help, he will hold Tim up and he wishes so much that he was taller, stronger, able to carry Tim.

But this is the body of a pathetic child and so all he can do is try and hold him up long enough for Tim to find any kind of balance, any kind of strength to stand.]

[He can taste it, iron and leaking through clenched teeth while the rest of him threatens to spill out if he doesn’t take the fucking time to be careful and move slowly despite the way he’s actively working to hold his guts inside the open maw of his own stomach.]

[The vertiginous lurch when he stands blanks out his vision in a blur of white static.]

[It occurs to him that he’s making a sound that’s too quiet to count for a scream but is nonetheless every agonized instinct packed into a low, pained growl between gritted teeth. Torque this. Torque it. Make it useful; give it words.]

Don’t - touch - the - blood.

I won't [He already has, there's blood everywhere. But he carefully finds space that isn't covered in it. The going is slow, Shion doesn't know where this will end. If it ends.

They move ever so slowly, in the direction of the mana pool] You're so brave [Some people when they are scared, worried and awkward go silent, Shion has always been a babbler, it's even worse since Reno helped him not freeze up in panic] One of the bravest people I've met and the Tower was filled with people who were braver than anyone had a right to be.

[A sound almost like a laugh leaks out between teeth stained red. Almost, because Tim doesn’t laugh, really. He manages wry sounds that could be construed as amused in certain contexts and outright derisive in most others, because that’s the most he can force into the open air without making it weird.]

[He hacks a clot of something gray-red and slimy into the dirt, and unconsciously gripes at Shion for support with his good arm. The other one, the one laid open with the bone glistening in the sun, that loops down around the opening in his side.]

‘M a coward. Liar.

[Maybe Shion just believes the best in people. He remembers hearing that story extolling Tim’s imaginary, nonexistent virtues, of largely peripherally. He couldn’t think of any way to interrupt gracefully.]

[Now he kinda finds himself wishing he had, just so he could shatter the kid’s delusion and get it over with.]

I'm not lying [He holds him better, tighter but trying his hardest not to hurt him. Though that's rediculous, as if Shion could hurt Tim more than the pain Tim was currently going through.]

It's... [One step, another, slowly moving] You might not see it, because you're too close. You are brave. [Like Aster was brave, brave and fearless and yet she never saw it.]

Just... being frightened doesn't make you not brave, you keep going. [He knows from being around Aster that he probably won't convince him, but it is something that it important that Tim knows, how brave he is]

[It'd be nice if he could arrange the fat, copper-tasting grub of his tongue into the kind of configuration that would allow him to clarify: He is a liar. You are a liar, Timothy Wright, and you always have been. The doctors asked, are you feeling better today, Timothy? and you got better at gauging the right amount of time you take to pretend to think before answering, tentatively, that your head hasn't hurt as much as usual, even if it has.]

[He's bent over himself. Every step shivers the soup of his internal organs, the split garbage sacks and round coils of red so deep it seems almost violet, like rotted pudding.]

'C-cause I can't just...leave. [Because there are people here who have lost so much, so much, that his departure would be an additional weight they don't need. It wouldn't burn hot, he doesn't think. It wouldn't be a flaming knife buried in the side of a house. He's not important enough for that.]

[It would be a quiet loss, the kind that aches and bleeds a vein of warmth in the center of you.]

[Trouble is, they've already got so many of those to contend with.]

Yeah [He can't leave, not just because they are physically trapped, that's not what Tim means. Shion has had to work on reading past the obvious but he gets that...

Tim keeps going because of those he cares about, and he says he isn't brave. He holds onto Tim as they keep going. Keep going because getting Tim out of here might help, might fix up the wounds on his outside, keep his organs were they should be.]

Keeping going... is bravery.

'S not for me.

[He calls it bravery. Tim knows it by a different name. He knows it from a crimson heart floating a few inches away from his chest, a blade plunged into its center with the high sound akin to splintering glass. He knows it from the way a knife sunk into his middle and he diverted everything he was into everything he wasn't, and grinned scarlet.]

[He knows it as determination.]

[The going is slow, and arduous, and painful, but if there's one thing he is and continues to be? It's determined.]

[Something he knows a little too well.]

[Shion is silent, he's not sure what Tim's trying to say, he's not sure what he's trying to say. He has never been... feelings and emotions have always been complicated. He has a lot more words for them now, read a lot more, met more people. Felt more.

But he's not sure he's gotten through to Tim, helped him understand what he was trying to say. He's not sure it matters, they are continuing onward. Slowly.]

[It doesn't much matter, really, and he doesn't have the wherewithal to pick fights about semantics. He doesn't have energy much. Focuses, instead, on the slow, desperate, excruciating tread, one foot after another, each step shooting another bolt through his belly and up through his fucking spine.]

[His molars feel like they might crack with the strain of gritting them to keep from issuing a constant, insufferable drone of pained misery when his foot snags something and he half-collapses, half-grasps for the nearest tree trunk with a short, sharp cry.]

Fuck -

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