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

[ She takes the magnum with wordless gratitude, taking a moment to stare at her knife before slipping it back into its holster. It's not her old combat knife. It's the knife Varric had given her, jewel-studded gold handle and all. She's kept it close by her side since the day he'd given it to her, so it shouldn't be too surprising that she has it now...

Except what the hell is it doing in the holster of her armor? How is she wearing her armor in the first place, when she hasn't so much as touched it since they arrived in Kirkwall? How had it, and she, and the knife, all ended up here?

She swallows, looking around the dense jungle. Fucking flowers. If it's the flower again that had brought them here... ]

So what? We just start tearing up plants and see where it gets us?

We could.

[This is hardly an optimal position to initiate a genuine interrogation, but his grip on his rifle is firm and familiar, and he pivots slightly to regard her profile in his periphery.]

But we're not an island that's sinking anymore, so I think maybe you could start explaining some shit.

[ Oh. She doesn't turn to look at him in return, just keeps her gaze out on the horizon. Maybe they're alone here, and they can let their guard down a little bit. Maybe not.

But the question - the implied question - is fair enough. She probably would've demanded answers from Wash a lot sooner, had their positions been reversed. ]

I can't explain how we got here. [ Just in case he gets any ideas. She doesn't know everything. But...still. There's a lot, and she knows it. ]

Where do you want me to start?

[He figured as much, considering how startled she was to end up here at all. But now? Now they can get to the meat of the issue, so he's going to start with, in his mind, the most obvious:]

Were you ever really dead?

[Donut should've counted as dead, and wasn't. Carolina was dead, until she wasn't. Church has been dead, officially and unofficially and in as many capacities as he can imagine, more times than Wash himself can count.]

[Some people come back from death, and some, apparently, are never meant to. Up until now, he'd assumed that Connie - that C.T. was always one for the latter.]

Yes.

[ It's easier, now, to say it. To accept it. She'd died, despite everything, despite all her efforts to get out. All the promises of...of something like justice. Of a better life.

She hadn't made it out. She'd started the push to take down Freelancer, set the pieces in place for its eventual demise, but she'd paid for it with her life.

And then she'd come back. ]

Tex killed me. Just like they told you.

[ She assumes. ]

[But she's not an A.I. fragment, to be backed up and uploaded elsewhere. She's not the Alpha's living gestalt memories gelling into being over a period of inching years, piggybacking off of someone else's electricity and neural patterns.]

And you...what? Just came back?

[He's well aware that he hasn't quite earned that level of incredulity. Not when it's, technically speaking, happened before.]

[But he'd stopped thinking he'd see anyone from his days at Project Freelancer, aside from the unflagging constant of Carolina, years ago. To hold onto hope otherwise would've been entirely too cruel.]

Not by choice. [ Though she would have chosen to come back, if it had been her decision to make. She hadn't wanted to die. Hadn't been ready so soon. ] Someone brought me back.

[ Now she looks at him, a sideways glance through the angry glare of her helmet. ]

You know, Wash. I told you.

The dream, right?

[She remembers, and so does he. Remembers screaming, remembers evoking people who weren't really him. Leonard Church, Leonard Church, variations thereupon, byproducts of Church flowering outward in infinite fluctuations on the same damn theme.]

[Meaning she remembers him acting like someone he isn't, and never was.]

You didn't mention you were getting married. [There's just no earthly way to make that sentence sound hostile; it emerges too baffled to be anything else.]

[ She looks away again, and there's a long pause before she speaks again. However they'd gotten off the island, wherever they'd ended up, they're still alone. There's still no Varric.

And - if he'd ever been there at all - she can't imagine he'd stopped to pick any flowers as the ground crumbled beneath his feet. ]

Well, I was.

How long were you...?

["Alive."]

[It feels wrong to say it. Wrong to think it. Wrong to pretend this could be real, that this could be possible, because if he entertains the notion that anyone could just exist and fucking materialize into being after being confirmed dead for years (who pulled the trigger on some of those Freelancers, Agent Washington? Who thumbed the triggers on the explosives that pulped their corpses to jelly and reduced their armor to useless scrap, per Command protocol?), if he pretends such a thing was possible, he'd end up on the fucking precipice of something he doesn't - ]

[An asymptote he doesn't want to cross.]

[ Engaged? No, that's not what he's asking. The question is too hesitant, too uncertain for that. Like maybe he doesn't want to know the answer.

Well, he'd asked. She sighs, looking out into the distance and mentally calculating. How many weeks on the ship? (Count up the murders.) How many months had she lost to depression and despair in Florida, how long had she and the others watched, white-knuckled, from Flavortown as the number of their surviving friends dwindled? The people who were supposed to have made it out, joining them in death one by one.

And then Thedas. A few months there. Something like happiness. Like peace. ]

A year, maybe? [ She frowns, doubtful. ] Maybe a little less.

[ Of course, she hadn't been alive all that time...but one step at a time. ]

[Time shrunk down, where she was. Only a year for her, and years for him.]

A year? It's been...

[It's been longer than that. He doesn't know the exact time - has no conceptualization of the hours and days of himself he lost in hospital beds or in catatonic ecstasy, trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, trying to pick the pieces of himself from the pieces of Church and of Church and of Church, threaded throughout and in triplicate and nerves set alight with partitions he couldn't hold.]

It's been years.

[ She laughs, but the sound isn't amused. It isn't bitter, either.

It's just...tired. ]

It's been centuries. It's been...

[ She turns to look at him, finally. Fuck it. If something attacks from behind, she'll just have to count on Wash to see it and take it down before it gets her. ]

When I woke up, when I - came back - it was 6972.

[ Or so the Counselor had said.

Right. The Counselor. That's another bombshell she has yet to drop on Wash. ]

What.

[It's flat, clipped, a sharp snap of teeth behind his helmet. The words penetrate but don't land, instead swirling in the center of his head like leaves tossed to and fro.]

It's...not that year now, is it?

[ She shrugs, a quick jerk of her shoulders. Who knows? Who cares? Time had stopped meaning so much after she was brought back from the dead and yanked forward a millennium and a half, after the Doctor had gotten his TARDIS back and offered to take all of them anywhere, anywhen they wanted to go. Varric's world operates on a completely different calendar than her own. And it doesn't matter. ]

How should I know?

[ She looks around. ]

If it was the Network who brought us here? Maybe. If not...probably not.

I'd say it seems a little underdeveloped.

[...but.]

[Chorus was a warzone. An artillery-blasted, shrapnel-shredded world whose most advanced technology had been Charon imports to fuel a manufactured conflict, or ancient alien constructs that no one could access.]

Who was the Network? What was it? Did you ever find out?

Maybe. Or maybe it's just a planet no one cares about.

[ One with no resources, that's unsuitable for colonization. One with frequent earthquakes, maybe, making it too dangerous to inhabit.

She shakes her head, not because she doesn't know, but because it's not what he's thinking. ]

It was an entertainment network, Wash. That's it. No big conspiracy, no ulterior motives. Just greedy people doing terrible things to make money. To get ratings.

[Greedy people doing terrible things to make money.]

[Some people can find that forgivable; people who do terrible things for good reasons. People who torture an entire artificial system in the memory of someone they once loved. People who pit an entire planet against itself because they're in denial about what they are and what they have the capacity to be.]

[He's not generally one of those people.]

[He's the one doing the terrible things.]

So this wouldn't be their M.O. Sending you, everyone...here.

[ She frowns, troubled. ]

...I don't know. The last time...

[ And the time before that, and the time before that. Five rounds. Dozens of people. ]

...We always woke up together, or...near each other. The group. And it was an enclosed space. A ship, or a station. Not...this.

It shouldn't be them. It shouldn't be possible, we took them down. They went to prison, all of them.

[ Except the Counselor, who, as usual, had gotten off scot-free. ]

But I don't know, Wash. Who else would do this? If it's not the network...why are we here?

[ It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it? ]

A talking, magical dream-rabbit calling themself the Storyteller, maybe?

[It's dry, but...defeated, because it's not like there's any other explanation, is there? They were done. Christ, they were done. Chorus was at peace. Hargrove was gone. They'd earned themselves a damn break, time to pack up their shit and mourn those they lost.]

[One in particular.]

So there's no one else from your...group here?

[ She gives him a Look for that, because it's still a sore subject. Missing fiancé, remember? ]

I haven't seen anyone but you.

[All right, all right, fair.]

But back in that - that dream, you weren't the only person I met. [He can't...quite recall the names of the other people he did meet, but if C.T. was real, why wouldn't they be?]

...You were the only person I met there.

[ Unless she's forgotten something? She furrows her brow, thinking. ]

Who else was there? Where did you find them?

Someone named Jack. Some...civilian I didn't know. [He shifts on the spot, rocking back on one heel; his helmet tilts in such a way that indicates he's glancing away, so he doesn't have to look at her.]

Not sure if there were any more. I wasn't exactly myself at the time.

[ There had been plenty of civilians on Airlocked, but she can't remember anyone named Jack. She nods, dropping her gaze. No, he hadn't been himself.

She's just glad he seems more present now. More sane. From what she's heard about what had happened with Epsilon, he'd have every reason not to be. ]

Well, unless we can find them again here, that doesn't help us much now.

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