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!

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[counterblows]

Which one?

[She's inches from him, and she can't tell if he's still looking at her, but there's nowhere else for him to look. Just the smudges of tears that she's stopped needing to fight.]

The one I guilted into dying for our cause? The one who used my pistol to blow his brains out? Or the one that fragmented himself so that his friends would have half a chance in hell?

Which one, Connie?

[tuskenlancer]

You know which one -

[ The one they were just talking about. The only one she cares about. She cuts herself off, tears threatening again, and just glares fiercely at him. ]

He was my friend. Wash. Do you realize that? He was my friend!

[ And she'd always had very, very few of those. ]

What did you do to him?

[counterblows]

They're all dead. And it comes down to what I did to make it happen.

[Did he not tell her? Did he not know? Did he not mention that it was Washington who blindsided them with a revelation none of them wanted to stomach, and marched them into the gut of Freelancer?]

That was all I had left. Three things. Wipe out the Meta. Wipe out Freelancer. Lure the Meta to Command. Use a single E.M.P. blast to scrub every A.I. and terminal from Freelancer Command, all at once.

[Three things.]

[He moves on.]

So I told Church what he was. Didn't believe me, but by the end - yeah. He walked into Command with me. He knew what he was doing when he bought me time to set the blast. He was the reason the Meta only put one bullet in me and didn't actually get the time to finish the job.

It was my fault he was there at all. And nothing I do is ever going to erase that.

Is that what you wanna hear?

[tuskenlancer]

[ It is. It's exactly what she'd asked - what she'd demanded that he tell her, because she'd had to hear it for herself. Church - the Church she'd met and befriended - hadn't known about his own death. He'd known that Wash was going to turn Epsilon in, and that was it. That was where his memories stopped.

Fragments of personality, fragments of memory. Neither of them had known the whole story, because neither of them had survived long enough to see the ending.

She looks at him for a long, long moment, hurt and angry and grieving and conflicted. She would have been just at angry at Church, if the story had been reversed. If he'd somehow been responsible for Wash's death. Would have been heartbroken and shaken and guilty and miserable if Wash had died at Maine's hands.

As it is, Wash is here. Church had died and never even known it. And now he's gone, too.

She turns, wordless, and starts walking away. ]

[counterblows]

[He almost makes as if to let her. Turn away, let her leave, and just - let that be the end of it. Hasn't she earned that much? The ability to dip out of the narrative on her own terms, for goddamn once?]

[It's never going to be that simple again.]

That was the mission. That was the same mission you set out to do.

[He woke the fuck up, didn't he?]

[This is where it got him.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ She ignores him, or tries to, because - she doesn't owe him anything, right? She'd given her life for the stupid mission. Her own team had killed her, the same people she was trying to save. Where does he get off talking to her like this? ]

Did anyone else die I should know about, Agent Washington?

[ Besides Church, besides the Insurrectionist leader. Besides York and North and South and Wyoming, Theta and Delta and Tex.

It's hard, sometimes, to even figure out who's left. ]

[counterblows]

Everyone's dead. The only reason people aren't dying anymore is because there's no one left.

[It's him and Carolina; the last remnants of Project Freelancer. If any of the others survived - well, he's probably better off not knowing, isn't he? Considering the way most of his old co-workers tend to go once they reconnect with him.]

You wanna hear about how we lost Tex - both times? Or Maine? [It bites in the back of his throat. That head domed in gold, entire conversations carried out in the way of silent glances in his direction while Washington filled the silence with words, all grinning insolence and woefully unprepared for what would follow knowing his friend got his throat shot out.] You wanna know how he went out? 'Cause it wasn't nice and quick like it was for most of them.

[tuskenlancer]

No -

[ Of course she doesn't want to hear it. Why would she? She hadn't wanted any of this.

It is't fair. She'd died, and somehow still survived long enough to see everyone else fall. ]

Just -

Why are you doing this?

[ She's the one who's supposed to be blunt and jaded and abrasive. Not Wash. ]

[counterblows]

They were my friends.

[Did she ask Church what happened to South Dakota? How he put a bullet in her skull after she put three in his spine? How he stopped caring for collateral the longer he committed to finishing what C.T. started?]

And if I wasn’t the one watching it happen, I was the one pulling the trigger. If I wasn’t doing that, I was the one cleaning up after.

[Pureeing dead teammates in their armor with sticky charges on a timer, and trying to forget the way York snickered: inverted penis.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ She doesn't know any of the details. Just the facts. The list of dead.

Her breath hitches a little, and she can't quite meet Wash's eyes. ]

I was trying to stop it all, Wash.

Before anything else happened to you.

[ But she'd failed. ]

[counterblows]

[You were the thing that did it. Maine, Carolina, the A.I. - it all started right after we lost you.]

[He doesn’t say it, because she has guilt enough on her conscience without him stacking the deck even further against her.]

And I was trying to make sure that sacrifice meant something.

[tuskenlancer]

...I know.

[ He shouldn't have had to, is the problem. If only her plan had worked the way it should have in the first place, there wouldn't have been any mission for him to complete. He wouldn't have had to spend years finishing the job, doing things to his friends that he should never even have had to think about, nearly losing himself in the process.

She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly before turning to look at him. ]

You did.

You made sure I didn't die for nothing.

[counterblows]

[Did his best to make sure it carried itself out in some lasting, permanent fucking matter, and instead he just - racked up dead friends and broken life histories. Those persuaded to join his cause would inevitably end up hurting for it, assuming they lived long enough to nurse those wounds.]

[Did anyone ever think that I'm sorry would be enough?]

[It wasn't.]

It doesn't fix any of what I did to make that happen. I know that.

[Do you think I don't know that?]

[tuskenlancer]

[ No, it doesn't. Any more that I never meant for anyone to get hurt excuses her for her involvement with the Insurrection, and everything they'd done. Or tried to do. She nods, staring silently at nothing for a few seconds.

In the end, there's really only one thing to say, though. ]

Fuck Freelancer.

[ Fuck the Director. Fuck the Counselor. Fuck the leaderboard.

Fuck all of it, and the way it had either ruined or taken the lives of every single person who was involved with it. ]

[counterblows]

[Cheers, he'll drink to that, bro. Or he would, if they had any liquor. Metaphorical toast in solidarity.]

[Wash huffs a noise out behind his visor. It's not quite a laugh, not quite a snort, but more a hum of bitter agreement. Fuck Freelancer. Fuck every part and parcel of it, and every shattered remnant it left behind. Himself included.]

Would you believe it's still making trouble for us, years after the fact?

[tuskenlancer]

I wish I could say no.

[ But she can't. Unfortunately, it's all too easy to believe. ]

I went over a thousand years into the future and still couldn't escape it.

[ Not with the Counselor there. Not with her fear of failure, of not measuring up, still hanging over her head. ]

[counterblows]

And I wish I could say that surprised me.

[The Counselor. Fuck. He always managed to weasel his way out of consequences. Disappeared off the face of the fucking planet. And when he finally pops up again, it's to slip between the cracks.]

I guess that's the reason we've managed to stick around. [It's one of the great principles upon which their universe is fucking founded: nothing is certain but death and Project Freelancer.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ She snorts, raising an eyebrow. Really, Wash? ]

Speak for yourself. Freelancer killed me, remember?

[counterblows]

[He spoke out of turn. He knows it. Still the rookie who makes things worse every time he opens his mouth.]

[She knew him when he was best. When he did dumb things like drink out of curly straws and ride the curves of the MoI hallways on the back of a skateboard. Before the bunched mass of keloid at the base of his skull became the central fucking tenet of his existence.]

It killed itself, too. You were part of that.

[tuskenlancer]

I know.

[ That's one benefit to coming back to life years after your death. You get to see what your sacrifice actually accomplished. ]

It's just...not how I imagined things happening, I guess.

[counterblows]

How were you imagining them?

[Turn in the evidence to the authorities, and wash your hands of it? He'd had a similar idea, once upon a time, but he hadn't been operating under the illusion that the authorities would be any more morally upstanding than the man he planned to condemn.]

[But then, that was a question of having the right context.]

[tuskenlancer]

I thought...

[ Well. She'd thought she'd live, for one thing. At least, she'd hoped she would. But she hadn't been naive enough to bet on that, even back then. ]

I thought if I couldn't get the message out, then he would. And if both of us failed...I left a copy behind. For Agent Texas.

[ Not for Wash, not because she didn't trust him, or believe he was strong enough to go up against Freelancer. But for Tex, because if any of them was going to believe her, if any of them had a reason to be angry about the truth behind the Program, angry enough to do something about it, it was her. ]

That was supposed to be enough.

[ The end of the Project, one way or another. Not this. Not the aftereffects dragging on for years, leaving Wash traumatized and most of the rest of them dead. ]

[counterblows]

It almost was.

[If they hadn't already sheared off Epsilon - ahead of schedule - and found it a match - A long memory. Look at that, you've got me talking about repressed memories now. - maybe it would have worked as planned.]

She fought like hell to get him out of there. To bring it all down.

...'course, they told us she went rogue.

[tuskenlancer]

[ Almost. It's always almost, isn't it? Your plan almost worked. You almost survived that fight with Tex and Carolina. You almost sabotaged Dudely's equipment without being caught, almost made it to the end of the round with Varric and the rest of them...

Almost on the leaderboard.

Almost. ]

Of course they did.

[ And it was kind of true, wasn't it? ]

How long was it until you found out?

[counterblows]

I was outta commission for a long time.

[Certified Article 12. He wakes up, and Freelancer is gone. He wakes up, and his best friends are off the grid. The Dakota twins, rogue. York? Also rogue, and a known affiliate to Agent Texas.]

[Agent Carolina declared K.I.A.]

[Agent Maine...unknown.]

[The fucked up thing: he can't actually remember if any of them came to find him once the shit hit the fan. The slightly less fucked up thing: that he can't tell if it would be worse if they hadn't bothered.]

[The most fucked up thing: he wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't.]

I got the story in pieces, and I'm still not sure how much of it is true.