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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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 -

[Shion reached out, grabbing Tim to try and prevent him from falling fully. Supporting his weight, he wished again he was stronger, that he could carry him.

But wishes were useless and all he could do was hope that Tim could rebalance himself]

Breathe, it's alright [It's alright was the second biggest lie Shion knew after I'm fine] Rest a moment and we'll continue

Fucking goddamnit - [Know this: he usually makes a more orchestrated effort to keep it clean when he's around kids, or people that look like kids. It's probably a useless impulse. It's probably next to useless, because most of them have probably heard far worse from adults that don't actively try to censor themselves.]

[Right now, that instinct has flown out of the window. For obvious reasons.]

[His breaths wheeze out - short, sharp, pained, a sheen of sweat sticking his eyelids shut.]

Gimme...a minute...'s all.

[Shion's definitely heard worse before, Reno had a very colourful mouth and had never really censored himself around Shion, or he might have. Shion didn't know, he may have been worse when Shion wasn't around. It wasn't like Shion minded. But he isn't surprised at all, Tim is hurt, broken, struggling to even more. His only surprise is that he managed to form words at all.]

Okay, a minute. Just rest. [He's still holding him, he takes the moment to think, remember the area and plot the easiest route out of here]

Son of a -

[The iron taste of his own fucking insides is making it hard to focus on anything besides the fact that his guts are bubbling out through his mouth, frothing and copper. Who does he know that handles this shit in the way of healing magic? Who does he know that can reasonably fix this?]

[He hopes to god it does fix itself by the time they clear the area of impact, or he really is fucked.]

D'you know anyone who...heals...shit like that.

[Shion just holds him steady, at the question he frowns] Aster knows a cure spell... I... it won't fix everything. [He knows it is not powerful to do so, but it might take some of the pain away. He feels stupid for not having thought about it before]

She's the only one... I don't know anyone else who can heal magically... [Not here. And it is powerful magical healing they need.]

[Cure. As if anyone could - as if there’s anything in him that could be cured. He chokes back the urge to indulge some sickening, psychotic giggle - an impulse that he knows doesn’t belong to him, because how could it? He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t - ]

[He slides down the length of the tree he’s decided to prop himself up against, and immediately regrets taking this course of action when every muscle in his gut spools up in agonizing knots.]

Fuck - fuck! [No. No, god, he’s - ] My f-fucking meds - how’m I supposed to -

[How the hell is he supposed to take them when there’s a hole in his gut?]

Breathe [Okay breathing might be difficult, with Tim's lungs the state that they are but Shion crouches next to him and holds his shoulder.] Try and calm down [He feels cruel just saying it, knowing that if their places were switched he would be struggling to stay calm. But panic was not going to make this any better.

Sometimes the kind thing was not the right thing. Shion needs to get Tim moving, to try to get him out of where he is. What would Reno have done? What had he done the many times that he had to get Shion through a difficult task.] On your feet. [He is there, to be a support, to take Tim's weight and help him stand]

One problem at a time, we see if getting out of here helps. If not... then we will worry about your medication.

[Breathe.]

[The instinct to snarl a sharp retort is easy to quell - the effort, the taste of his own insides on his tongue, the swell of bile in his trachea, those kinda limit his capacity to remark on the situation at large - but his lungs have never been fond of him, his respiratory system fucked by biology and a chainsmoking habit he refuses to quit.]

[He's gonna keep going. He's gonna keep going, but his head's spinning and he's got nothing left to throw up but more of his stomach lining, and he's a little afraid that if he tips over one way or another he's gonna end up slopping the rest of the way out.]

I need - something - to hold me - in. [He paws feebly at his pack. One of the straps slips off his shoulder of its own accord and thumps dully to the floor.] Should be...old blanket.

[Blanket, Shion opened the pack and looked through it. The blanket was easy to find and Shion was just glad that this was something practical he could do to help.

He pulled it out and thought for a moment... how best to do this? If Tim were smaller, if Shion were stronger he would just wrap him completely and carry him. But that won't work.]

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