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

[lifeaftr_mods]

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!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

Keith | OTA - Will match format

[thermalwind]

Zizypus - Focus, fire a gun

[Bliss is dead. It hadn't been something that could be avoided even if everything else before that feels like it could have. If he hadn't slipped and fallen under the god's spell Shiro wouldn't have had to break the dream. He races over the island, moving from crisis to crisis on autopilot.

New arrivals. By the stars he hopes it's no one from home. He's just not-

He shuts off his mind after that. He hauls creatures to the manapool. The planty owls and their owlets clinging to his armor and arms as he keeps them protectively tucked into his pack and in his arms. Leading TigerLilys by herding them carefully and coaxing at other times. He's vaguely worried at one point one will decide he's too important to leave when he drops them on Monsun.

He throws himself into danger rushing to others defense while calling out.] Hold on, I'm on the way!

[Sometimes he just comes out of nowhere, sword snapping through tangles or hand thrust out to snatch someone struggling out of harm's way. He doesn't rest. He doesn't slow down.

Thinking is for later and when he does he won't be capable of moving forward for a while.]

Monsun - We were bold and young

A - West side

[Keith glances out over the desert as plant owls flutter out of his pack and off his person. They head for the east. Maybe it won't make them predators. He opens his water jug and takes a long drink. It's been a trying time rushing back and forth.

There's still so much more to do. He can feel his mind growing sharper as he puts his things away and builds a campsite to take a break at. It does nothing for the sense of shame hanging over him like a dark shroud.]

...no. Just...no. [He tucks away gear he won't need at the camp and draws his glass-like knife and Marmora Blade. Last time he'd been here there had been hydras. Keith rolls his shoulders back. Someone will go out there and discover it the hard way. Well.

And that is how should you run into sand hydras there's help there with you. Blades flash and a voice calls out,] Run for it if you're going to! Unless you're planning to take one down!

B - East Side
[He doesn't want to be on the east side. It only takes thinking about how angry he'd been to make him want to run the other way. But people are staying on the island for now. They need food and safe resources. He wants to stay away.

But like always, as he wades into the river and trudges onto the other side, he does what must be done. He moves through the forest, trapping wildlife, and gathering food on autopilot. He's careful as much as he can with how much he takes. This island needs to survive.

They'll probably come back here later. The longer he stays the harder it is to find him. And the more you won't want to. His guilt, shame, and anger build like a hurricane about to make landfall.]

Enso - All around the wind blows

[He's tossed and turned for hours. Keith eases himself out of the cottage by moving with the floorboards they'd laid down to make a solid floor. Lance and Shiro need their sleep after everything that happened. Tucked safely away in the fire pit at the center of their larger home, Ember sleeps peacefully on. Everyone is safe.

He shuts the door quietly behind him. Keith lingers at the door as he checks over his gear. Lantern. Knife. Stone in his belt pouch. He walks away towards the sea without a backward glance.

Things were so much easier before. When he dragged himself home each night to his little shack where he would patch himself up and sleep. When he didn't have to worry who needed him to stay alive. No one had known him back then and he didn't let them see that far past the surface. He had focused solely on getting answers and chasing the truth.

No matter how much of his blood had been spilled. No one had known how hard he was driving himself to find out the whys. He uses the manapool and turns on his lantern when he finds his feet on Enso soil. Keith draws his knife with a practiced motion and lengthens it to a sword. Predators roam the night.

His thoughts swirl as he follows slightly worn pathways. He could track, kill, and bring something home to clean and smoke for their food stores. Just as he starts to kneel to check animal tracks, a soft gentle wash of colors in the distance distorted by sea water catches his eye. He follows it, moving at a brisk almost silent pace. He bursts out onto the beach and stares. His eyes widen as he takes a couple of steps, the water lapping at his feet.]

...I. Wow. [There's lights in the water alright. They drift lazily by like flickering lanterns in the sea. He stands rooted to the spot in awe unable to look away.]

Enso

[despairing_hope]

"The ocean is dangerous you know, especially at night," Komaeda didn't exactly call out, but he spoke loud enough to be heard. He was sitting on a washed up log, just out of reach of the tide. "Unless that's what you really want to do, but I don't think it would last for very long."

He was watching the colours in the water, he had thought it would be beautiful at night with the waves and stars, and he had been right. It felt a little lonely with the vast emptiness and expansiveness one could see, but, he had felt he had to be alone. He supposed that he wasn't lucky enough to stay that way for long.

"I won't stop you if you really want to go down that path."

[thermalwind]

Keith whips around at the sound of a voice on the night air. His blade shrinks, reverting back to a knife. He slips it back into its sheathe and scans the area as he steps slowly back onto the beach. The lantern's dim light gives him just enough light to see someone sitting on a log.

"What exactly do you mean by 'last for very long'?" Keith ghosts over the sand and sets his lamp down twisting the top to make the glow up to the radiance of a camp fire. He doesn't want to fight off night creatures. "I just came to see what the lights in the water are."

[despairing_hope]

"Ah, so you weren't trying to drown yourself at a time when no one would ever find you?" he lifted his hand up to his chin and then nodded a little. "I'm glad, that would be a bit much, and would be really unlucky and ruin the view."

[thermalwind]

"What the-Why would you ever think that?!" He snarls, as that spark of anger he's had burning in his chest ignites. Yet he pulls it back, turning to face the water. "Anything new should be investigated...especially at night. Those night creatures are still out there." His eyes flick over the colors in the water.

He steps closer to the sea, until he's almost back in the water. "None of us have been here for a full turn of the seasons."

[despairing_hope]

"Night is the time when suspicious activities are done and it's most dangerous," of course, he was out here at night too.

"But, even if you've just come to look, I would stay out of the water. You never know what might happen, and you might also get swept out."

[thermalwind]

"I'm not worried about that." He stabbed a shark in the gills when he first woke up here. "And what the hell have you seen to think anyone here is all that interested in messing with each other? Especially right now. The god did more than enough damage." His voice loses its edge at the end.

Thinking of Bliss reminds him too much of why he's out here in the first place. Keith folds his arms across his chest and watches the multiple colors dance under the waves. "And we might just be seeing the consequences."

[despairing_hope]

"People are the last thing you can trust. Do we really know each other so well enough that we can't say someone won't do something if they feel pushed or they have to?" he knew very well people could and would do anything given the right situation. Even what he could do....

There was a long silence, he didn't want to think about Bliss, or the dreams people had found themselves in or what it had taken to break them out....

Ah... he was a monster.

"Also, I wasn't talking other people here, but you don't quite trust them either if you jump to them first, do you? I meant the ocean. It's dark, you can't see very well. There might be something that attacks you, or something you need to avoid but you can't see. Like a jellyfish."

[thermalwind]

He raps his knuckles against one gauntlet of his space armor. "For someone that doesn't trust others you seem pretty concerned with my well being." This man is confusing. He can't quite make heads or tails of his talk. It seems aimed outward and he focuses all his attention on refuting it.

"You said suspicious activities. Who else could do that here right now while Storyteller is resting? It's a process of elimination." He walks slowly back to where his lamp sits in the sand and settles down beside it. He lays his sword across his lap but his eyes never leave the water.

There's something soothing about the strange event they're witnessing. He'd rather watch it alone.

[despairing_hope]

"Of course suspicious activities. You look very suspicious yourself. However, I meant more... well, drowning yourself is a suspicious activity," he hadn't meant it in a particular way, like thievery or such, simply night was the time to do things you didn't want others to see.

"And why wouldn't I be concerned for another person? I'm not some sort of monster. I also don't distrust others, I'm not paranoid," why would he be distrustful of someone who hadn't done anything to be distrustful of yet? Things always worked out anyway, even if it was someone bad....

[thermalwind]

Wait. He pauses, staring suspiciously at the stranger. He's so odd and doesn't make any sense. He's forced to look away from his own problems to puzzle out what exactly he's trying to say. "Wait, so you're calling anything done at night suspicious?"

How the hell does that work? Keith watches him. "And yeah maybe I do look suspicious." Running around in the dark with his lantern and sword. Yeah, he'd have been wary of him. "But you're sitting out here in the dark on the beach near that dangerous sea. Doesn't that make you just as suspicious. Didn't say you were a monster either. You're just making odd comparisons."

[despairing_hope]

"Because they glow, why wouldn't you go out to see that? It's beautiful!" and he liked beautiful things. "But, as you can see, I'm not going near the water. The beach should be safe enough," though, under different situations he wouldn't have tried to be alone. Or perhaps, a part of him was waiting to see if he would have stayed that way.

Oh well, things happen for a reason.

[thermalwind]

It feels like they’re having two different conversations. Keith looks back at the water. It’s true the beach is safer than the water. Yet. “The night creatures are still out there. Even the beach isn’t entirely safe. You...have a weapon to defend yourself, right”

Judging by the look of him he highly doubts it. A year ago he’d have justified why he came out into the dark. He feels no need to justify himself now. “They are incredible. ...It looks like a lot moving lanterns.”

enso!

[deathfindsaway]

[Kravitz doesn't typically roam far from his camp; being one of the few who still reside on Enso, he's beginning to know the surrounding paths well. He's still a mess when it comes to proper sleeping sometimes, so even in the middle of the night he finds himself at the shoreline, knees drawn up to his chest as he watches the swirling colors of the ocean.

He tilts his head as Keith bursts into the scene, his wonderment calming his disposition significantly. Kravitz raises his eyebrow at the shift, rolling his shoulders back and sitting more upright.]

Is it your first time? Seeing them?

[thermalwind]

Y-yeah. [Keith steps out of the surf back onto the sand. He glances in the direction of the voice. He doesn't recognize the person but so much of the stretch of time between Lance's arrival and now is one big blur.]

The sea hasn't ever lit up like that in the time I've been here. [He pivots to face it. The gentle light is the nicest thing he's seen since he woke up adrift in the sea all those...months? ago.]

I'm sorry if I disturbed you.

[deathfindsaway]

[There's a lot of people Kravitz doesn't know around here. He's stayed rather insular since his arrival, trying to simply figure out how not to panic just about every day. That's finally calming, or at lest sort of. The turtles help.

He waves his hand dismissively at Keith's last remark.]

It's not my beach, you needn't worry. I was simply watching them. I certainly don't have a right to stop you, though they seem fairly skittish. I wouldn't recommend hunting them, if that's what you're after.

[thermalwind]

...I just came to look. [The sword in his hand reverts to a knife in a wash of soft bluish purple. He flips it in his hand and slides it into the sheathe on his back.]

There's never been lights like this in the sea since I got here. [He lowers his lantern and clips it back onto his belt. He's been a wandering sort since he got here but.]

...it might be seasonal. Mind if I sit with you and watch?

[deathfindsaway]

[He nods, gesturing to the sand next to him.]

If you'd like.

[Usually, he's not so smooth with conversation, but he's a little pensive, still thinking, and therefore not so wary of interaction.]

If it's seasonal, and you haven't seen it... how long have you been here?

[thermalwind]

[He sits and lets the time it takes to fold his legs under him to recall how long it has been. Keith counts off in his head.]

...seven months? Time is difficult to judge here. I came here right before the sun went dark. It...had to be reborn. It's a phoenix. [He rubs at the side of his neck and looks to the lights on the water. They're beautiful. It's, even more, enchanting up close.]

Don't ask me how that works. I'm still trying to figure it out.

[deathfindsaway]

[He's literally about to ask when he just drops it and rolls his eyes, raising his hands a bit in a 'why' gesture.]

Of course. Of course it is. That sounds like something that would happen around here.

[Why does the world do this to him, constantly, forever.]

Still, that's... troubling. That anyone's been here so long. Has it been difficult?

[thermalwind]

[Difficult? He thinks about that.] Yeah. When the sun went out it got cold and dark. Creatures from the deep depths wanted to destroy the sun before it could revive. It was a week of fending them off in one massive siege.

Islands other than Enso have been a challenge. The only civilization we've seen was a group of people who executed anyone who didn't obey their rules to something called Standing Water.

Sometimes it all feels like a bunch of ideas written down on a page and carried out each time we leave this island. Traveling in space was a bit easier to deal with than living on this world.

[deathfindsaway]

[He hums in response at first, listening attentively, though he does wave his finger a bit at the description of Ai'touoh, which he recognizes.]

Yes, I-- I know that one. Or well, I dreamed it. But I'm told that's rather par for the course here.

[That last bit is interesting, though.]

I suppose that would be as good a reason as any to call them the Storyteller. But, uhm... did you say space? You traveled between planes?

[thermalwind]

Planets or, worlds I guess. [He leans back and gestures to the sky above their heads. How does he explain this properly?]

In real time, every planet has layers. The higher you go the less air there is. Beyond that is the void of space. You have to have special machines and equipment to get up there and survive.

[Wait that bit about Storyteller. He zeroes in on it.]

And hold on. Do you think Storyteller creates the islands we visit?

[deathfindsaway]

[He waves his hand a bit.]

No, I understand space. How it works, at least. I was more interested in someone who travelled within it. I used to move between planes quite freely, though this one seems not to have more than the material.

[Or at least not that he can access, which is like the same as them being gone to him. But he raises an eyebrow at the last question.]

Not necessarily. But it's possible. I am aware they were asleep for a great long time, but who knows about before that. They seem to have a great deal of influence.

[thermalwind]

Ah, sorry. Not used to people knowing what I’m talking about when I mention space here. [He looks up at the sky again. He misses flying and going on missions. He felt like he was doing something other than tearing at the walls and trying to find a way through.]

Anyway I think their influence is limited. Or very specific. And I traveled space but it was material space? Is that how you would put it? Going between planes is something we did once but we ended up in another version of our reality. [He looks at his companion with open curiousity.]

I can still tell you about what I’ve seen out there if you want.