lifeaftr | June Intro: Let's Sea How Far We've Come

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June Intro: Let's Sea How Far We've Come

INTRO LOG: JUNE

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr as the island of Ziziphus begins to crumble
When: June 4th and onward
Where: Ziziphus and Ensō...and Monsun
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Ziziphus: At The Start Of The End Of The World
Since Bliss's destruction, the extensive root network they've threaded throughout every inch of the island of Ziziphus has begun to crumble. June 4th marks the beginning of the inevitable collapse of the island as it starts to sink into the sea...coincidentally coinciding with the arrival of LifeAftr's newest adventurers. Between the dead trees surrounding Bliss's empty husk, great cracks in the earth start to widen, the dead god's absent root system leaving vast gaps underground which simply cannot support the life above.

It almost sounds like thunder rupturing from the ground itself, wild tremors preceding each vicious boom until gaping chasms lay between venturing parties and the safety of the mana pool - only water waits below, for those unlucky enough to lose their footing.

And if the immense pull of mile wide chunks of landmass sinking beneath the waves isn't enough to suck you down, the heavy rain of debris from Ziziphus's rapidly destabilizing edges will certainly help. Want to avoid a watery grave? What you need to do is simple:

Escape.

Sorry, newbies. If you showed up on Ziziphus, you're in for a very athletic entrance to LifeAftr.

Monsun: Just Like Every Other Morning Before
Adventurers aren't the only creatures on Ziziphus attempting to outrun its collapse. Creatures great and small, from the largest spindlank to the smallest tigerlily will be heading south in an attempt to escape the worst of the quakes. Unlike offshore adventurers, however, these poor creatures don't have a mana pool waiting for them to escape through. Their extinction, it seems, is imminent.

Unless you have something to say about it.

Already exhausted from their attempts to get through to and then actively dispose of their fellow god, the Storyteller will break their traditional manner of communication to announce a potential solution to this problem with a single broadcast to the Stones of Far Speech in a strained, weary tone:

"The mana pools on Monsun are now open. If you are willing, save what you can."

True to their word, characters will discover that the island of Monsun will be accessible once more for a short period of time. From prey to predator, obstruction to catastrophe - multiple species of flora and fauna can still be preserved, should you choose to do so.

Be wary of the psychological effects of both sides of the island. Those who are new to our setting and wish to explore, the island of Monsun has a peculiar side effect to its stark divide: the eastern half is rich in resources, but brings out the very worst of you, while the western half is a tumultuous wasteland that accentuates your best qualities. More information on said island can be found on its entry on the Locations page, or its introductory info post.

Due to these efforts, the Storyteller will not be available for contact from the 4th to the 18th of June. Item Requests will also be unavailable at this time. They will, however, make a rather strained announcement to ensure all are aware that access to both Ziziphus and Monsun will cease on June 10th.

Ensō: I Wonder What It Means If It's Gone
The native fauna of Ziziphus aren't the only ones on the move, it seems. Those who wander the shores of Ensō will be delighted to witness the appearance of creatures akin to both turtles and dugongs drifting through the waters, gravitating around the island's eastern coast, rapidly gaining in numbers over the following days.

Kaleidoshells have been unlocked in the bestiary!

With spring close to ending in the archipelago, these peaceful creatures are looking to make good use of their natural nesting areas; hope you're open to sharing the beach for a little while. While a few braver individuals will make their way to the shores between C4 and D1 to begin digging nests, the vast majority won't be coming to shore quite yet.

They do, however, make a very fine sight around the waters of Ensō, especially in the evening. Luminescent, their rainbow patterns glow underwater, drifting mood lights for the increasingly warmer evening breeze.

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

[ Or you'll do what, she doesn't snap at him, even though it's a fair question. After all, all she is to him right now is a voice on his comm. What's he going to do, track her down in the next twenty seconds and shoot her in the head? Kill her?

Maybe.

Maybe he would.

She remembers finding him in a field of blue flowers, remembers him struggling to hold on to his own sanity, remembers gripping his hand in her own, trusting him to lead her out of the darkness. But none of that had happened, obviously. She can see. There is no field. And Wash sounds just as angry and hostile and bitter as she'd been afraid he would be.

CT smiles sardonically, dropping her head. ]

It's me, Wash.

I -

[ Fuck, how the hell is she supposed to prove it. She closes her eyes. ]

What do you want me to say? I know it's impossible. I know you think I'm dead.

But I'm not.

[ Anymore. ]

You're not the first person to walk around under the name of C.T., so I'm not -

[I'm not falling for that again.]

[He is not letting his fucking hopes get broken across the goddamn rocks, and he is not gonna be stupid enough to let some vague hope distract him from what needs doing, right now, and what needs confirming, besides the fact that his team isn't responding to him - and the only person who is happens to be a fellow agent who was confirmed K.I.A. for years.]

I need you to prove it.

Fuck, Wash.

[ She doesn't have time for this. But she gets it. Sort of. What does he mean, not the first person to walk around under the name of CT? ]

You used to call me Connie. I told you to stop, that it made me sound like a kid. Your real name is David. You have blond hair and two sisters. Your voice gets all squeaky when you get flustered, which happens a lot. Your psych profile says you used to wet the bed -

Should I keep going?

[Freelancer always tolerated a certain level of bullshit, provided you could do the job assigned to you. It was the reason why North could get away with uncleared equipment use in the field, with so many mods on some of his weapons that Wash was ninety percent sure that it was illegal. It was the reason South could get away with singing early twenty-first century pop punk singles in the pelican during loadout, without anyone batting an eye.]

[It was the reason that, despite confidentiality being the order of the day, most everyone knew a little of each other's deployment histories at the very least.]

[He switches the comm off. The buzz of water-leaked static is burning in the center of his head like a budding headache, and he needs a moment.]

[It ticks back on thirty seconds later.]

Where are you? My comm's dying, and it's not gonna work forever.

[ That, and she'd stolen the personnel files along with everything else when she'd hacked into the Director's system. Still, she wonders if she'd gone too far when he turns off the comm. Or maybe not far enough. Maybe she'd failed and he is coming to kill her.

It seems like a long time before the comm clicks back on, and she breathes a sigh of relief when it does. ]

I don't know. I just - showed up here.

I'm near the beach. The ground - it keeps shaking. Wherever I am, it isn't safe.

[There's a lot of beach. A lot of beach, and not a lot of landmarks that immediately draw his eye. Pair that with the unstable ground, and the possibility that they might not even get the chance to legitimately speak face to face is starting to feel more and more like an inevitability.]

All right, I...I've got woodland at my back, and I'm heading toward some kind of peninsula. That sound familiar at all to you?

[ It does. She turns around, and sees the peninsula she'd passed earlier. ]

Yeah. I can see it.

I can meet you there.

[ There's every possibility that he hadn't believed her, of course. Or that he had, and still blames her for defecting, still means to kill her anyway.

But she doesn't have a lot of choice right now. ]

Hurry.

All right.

[He doesn't need to click the comm off; it simply goes dead, the last of its energy apparently spent in making that final call. He moves at a brisk jog, trying to keep the occasional shivers of the rumbling earth underfoot from slowing his stride too much.]

[He dreamed it. He dreamed this, dreamed her, dreamed seeing her, but it wasn't like any of his dreams before and what does that mean, the fact that he saw her in a place not so unlike this one, full of rippling grass and bristling with colored blooms?]

[There are too many pieces he's not sure how to put together, and too many unknown variables.]

[But sure enough, as he approaches the rendezvous, fuck if he'd know that EOD design anywhere.]

[ CT heads back to the peninsula, doing her best to ignore the quakes. Are they getting worse, or is that her imagination?

But the ground doesn't split underneath her before she gets back, at least. She turns, and there he is. Wash. He's in his armor, like her, but unlike her, he's armed with more than just a knife. She stiffens, but still, she can't really do anything to stop him if he takes a shot and doesn't miss.

In the dream, he hadn't hated her. In the dream, he hadn't wanted to kill her for defecting.

She steps forward, one hand hovering near where her knife lies strapped to her side. Just in case. ]

Hey.

[In the dream, he wasn't quite himself. And he knew it was her. He - vocal distortion mods might as well be a dime a dozen now, thanks to Hargrove. They dug up C.T.'s helmet, buried in the sand, and everything tied into it.]

[He won't deny it - the fact that he hates himself, a little, for raising the muzzle of his rifle and stopping dead, several meters away. It won't save him from her armor mod, but he's dealt with cloaking tech before. He just needs to keep an eye out.]

I need you to take off your helmet. I need to know.

[ It's not until he speaks that it occurs to her that she could have used her enhancement. She hasn't even worn her armor since...well, for months and months now. Can't explain how she'd woken up here with it on.

Well, the hologram wouldn't have fooled him for long anyway. And it's better not to give him any more reason to doubt her than he already has, right? She doesn't want to have to kill Wash. Or be killed by him.

Slowly, she reaches off and pulls off her helmet, shaking her hair back out of her face as she lowers it to her side and lifts her eyes to look at him. ]

You too.

[...it's her.]

[Fuck.]

[It really is her. Not some Insurrectionist, not someone running around with the moniker of C.T., like they had some kind of right to it. Was it her, when he dreamed it? Was it - ]

[The moment oozes past, painstaking in its silence and its slowness because it really is her, before Wash finally snaps back into the present. Manages to jerk his head downward in a short, terse nod, and lets his rifle drop. Reaches up, one-handed, and thumbs the release on his helmet so he can drag it up over his head.]

[The wind and the tremors underfoot buffet his hair into even further disarray than usual - violently blonde, blackened roots - and the sun throws the dark copper color of his freckle-mottled skin into vivid relief, dark purple half-moons hung low beneath both eyes.]

[Older, more worn, the war and then Freelancer and then Epsilon and then everything that followed having taken decades off him - but undeniably Freelancer Agent Washington.]

[David.]

You're real.

[ He looks...older. Older, and more tired. How long has it been, for him? How much has he been through?

But it's him. Wash. The same Wash. She manages a smile, small and uncertain. ]

Yeah. I am.

So don't shoot me, okay?

[He shuts his eyes. Stupidly, because you should never take your eyes off of someone who defected, someone who put a knife in Tex's back (in Allison's), someone whose loyalties you're still not entirely certain of, because her intentions may have been better in retrospect but that doesn't change what her Sharkface buddy was willing to do to Carolina for the sake of a years-old vendetta.]

[What he was prepared to do to Wash.]

I had to check. You...you died, C.T. And then years later, we find someone else wearing your armor, calling himself C.T.

What?

[ She'd thought Church had told her everything. She'd certainly asked him everything she could think of. About the Director. The Project. The other Freelancers - about Wash, specifically, a little more urgently than most.

She'd never thought to ask about herself. ]

Himself?

Who...

[ There's only one person it could be, isn't there? Isn't there? But she has to anyway. She swallows, her mouth dry. ]

Who was it?

[He shakes his head. The wind biting against his skin is a reminder: he can't mask the cold clench of his jaw, the way it tenses a muscle in his cheek.]

I never met him. We just dug his armor - your armor - out of the sand by some old Sangheili temples.

[Don't mention that he did it twice. Don't mention that the first time, it was with the gutted, empty-shelled corpse of a co-worker, a friend, broken by the presence too many minds in his head. Don't mention that it was with Carolina, the second time.]

[Don't mention that whoever ran under her callsign nearly killed Lavernius Tucker.]

I worked with someone who knew him, but I never got the impression that they were close.

[Don't mention that it was, apparently, Epsilon who killed him.]

[ She looks away, wrapping her arms around herself and hugging herself a little bit.

So much had happened since she'd bled out on the floor of that ship. Since she'd pushed the dogtags into his hand, told him to take over and do what she no longer could. But even so, it hasn't been all that long.

Less than a year. For her. Not for Wash, or anyone else. ]

...he was dead?

[ Her voice cracks a little bit, and she swallows. ]

By the time we got there.

[The words are flat. Toneless. The physical impact of the realization is beyond palpable, and if he could possibly manage it, he'd push through the wall of his resignation, where he's relatively certain that a genuine emotional reaction besides paranoia performed by exhausted rote exists.]

[He's just...]

[Trying to process this. All of it at once.]

I didn't...did you know him, or...?

[Did you know him? Did you love him? Was he worth it? Was he worth defecting for?]

[ She had loved him. Or at least, she'd thought she had, which amounted to the same thing. But she hadn't defected for him. She wipes away a stray tear, mouth turning down in a scowl to hide the unhappy frown. Wash sounds hollow, emotionless. Does he really not care? Or had he just seen so much it couldn't even reach him anymore? ]

It doesn't matter. [ It does. ] It was a long time ago. [ For him. For everyone else but her.

The ground shakes again, and she stumbles, catching herself just in time. ]

We need to get out of here.

[That's one thing he recognizes, without question. The ability to fake it like a champ. You pull yourself together in a crisis and knot it all down underneath. It'll burn you up one way or another, but you do it on your own time.]

[What choice is there?]

[The low growl of shifting earth nearly throws him off balance. He slides his helmet back on with the catch of pressure seals hooking into place.]

Agreed. Problem is, place looks like an island, and I sure didn't see a pelican drop us off.

[ She puts her own helmet on with a feeling of relief as she walks over to him. At least now she won't have to try and look like everything's okay. ]

I know, but...[ She swallows. ] Wash, did you see anyone else here? Anyone else?

[There’s just no kind or easy way to say it. The shielding of the gold duraplex visoring is beyond welcome, but he still glances away.]

I...saw things before I woke up here. Like dreams. Weird, right? [His tone is light, even, deliberately casual. Weird. Funny. Totally not relevant to anything, right?]

Dreams?

[ It's not at all what she'd been thinking of, and her forehead wrinkles in confusion and anxiety. They don't have time to talk about Wash's dreams...except that she remembers something, too. ]

What kind of dreams?

Place kinda like this one. Full of flowers.

[He remembers it: the scent of the sea. The tickle of pollen in his nostrils. The scrambling panic of Connie, of C.T. clinging to his hand.]

[The sound of his own screams dying in his throat.]

You were there.

[ Her eyes go wide behind her helmet. Flowers. It can't be a coincidence, right?

She hesitates, just long enough for him to notice. But then she shakes her head. They don't have time. ]

I'm not talking about dreams. Did you see anyone else here? On the island?

[ She steps closer, looking up at him urgently. ]

He's short, and he has blond hair, and he would've been - carrying a crossbow, maybe -

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