July Intro: Upsy-Daisy!

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: JULY

Who: New arrivals, your lif᷆t̕i͗n᷅ģ f̧̞ͅr̡̦̃ḭ̅ͭe̩᷅̂n̟̣̤d̨̬̏, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr, and everyone makes a new friend!
When: July 5th and onward
Where: All over Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Like a Bat Out of Hell
At this stage, the appearance of new arrivals to Ensō's shores is hardly a surprise to anyone but the arrivals themselves. Whatever mysterious force is responsible seems to have taken a vaguely nostalgic route this month, depositing the new and unconscious across the shoreline of the beach closest to the tumbled stone bastion of the Storyteller's temple. At first, that seems to be all there is to it. The arrivals stir to the smell of salt and the summer sea air, and the cycle of questions, searching, and settling begins.

For about five minutes. Perhaps ten.

Almost like an afterthought, something else shows up, plummeting straight out of the sky and landing with a veritable explosion of water some hundred feet from the shore. A large, rectangular shape breaches the surface after a few moments, bobbing, cork-like, in the foam-crested waves before ever so slowly beginning to sink into those aquamarine depths. For those familiar with such objects, it makes for a rather odd sight. That most certainly was an elevator, or you can be...fairly sure it was?

Give it another minute, and you'll be certain. The elevator streaks out from the ocean like a creature possessed. Maybe, in those split seconds prior to its approach, you'll be able to note the elevator's distinct features: a disturbingly smiling face on its doors, and a set of teeth framing a very organic mouth.

Meet Upsy, your lifting friend. In case it wasn't obvious by now, Upsy is far from a conventional elevator by any standards. What's more, Upsy has not taken to LifeAftr as well as some others. Armed with the ability to move in any direction, the rogue contraption takes no prisoners - by which we mean, they take as many prisoners as possible. Upsy proceeds to swoop across the shoreline, combing the beach in the most haphazard and patternless path possible, scooping up anyone slow enough to be caught in their maw. Once you're caught up in their jaws, it comes down to the winds of fortune, in regards to wherever Upsy proceeds to spit out their cargo. While the journey itself will be rough and...sticky, it is not inherently dangerous.

Hopefully, the same can be said for wherever you end up Ensō hosts a great deal of predators, environmental hazards, and worse. Though you could always end up belched into the ocean. Hope you can swim!

When the Metal is Hot and the Engine is Hungry
Upsy’s reign of terror isn't restricted to mere adventurers. Those with livestock or animal companions may be in for a small shock or, perhaps more likely, a very large one, when flying elevator sucks up those cuddly critters with a grin and spirits them off into the great unknown.

Though your phoenix, chocobo, or tigerlily may not be where you saw them last, you can at least be assured that they are still on Ensō. All you need to do is round them up. And if this isn't good enough news, well...at least you don't keep bludrocs.

Whether you're out searching for an animal or not, be careful traversing Ensō for the next three days. If Upsy is empty, they'll most certainly snap you up. And if they aren't? You may find anything from birds to horses spat out at you.

The velocity of these organic projectiles tends to vary. Dramatically. Upsy's reign of terror will end on the evening of July 9th. At that point, the elevator will fly off to greener pastures...and our RNG spreadsheet for potential encounters in future. Sweet dreams.

---

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

Kaworu Nagisa | Neon Genesis Evangelion | Will match formatting!

[braceforimpact]

Enso - Beach

There are oceans where Kaworu is from. A lot of ocean, in fact, more now than once existed, pre-Second Impact. He knows what an ocean looks like.

But in walking along the beach, he saw something... strange. Something in the water. Not the broken glass or wreckage left from boats. Not the rotted loops of rope or waterlogged planks of splintered wood.

He's stopped in the sand, wide red eyes fixed on the listing hull of some boat-that-was, below the waterline and in the underwater shadows around it.

Anyone who comes near (audible or not, peripherally visible or not, anywhere within ten feet at the least) will be promptly informed of what's so interesting, though he's too busy looking for what he saw to glance away for even a second. And what he saw is--

"I saw something move."

Kaworu knows what an ocean looks like; however, while there are oceans where Kaworu is from... there aren't any fish.

Enso - Temple Ruins (Upsy Surprise)

Ruins... are also familiar. They're less overgrown than this in Old Tokyo, but they're still ruins--the broken remnants of human construction, human society and human culture. Human ingenuity. Human creation. Walking amongst the broken walls is fine, it's just more wreckage... if everything humans make is so easily broken, then what's the point of their existence? He certainly doesn't know.

It's not really his business, anyway.

It's in that train of thought that it appears--another construction, but not a construction. A construction with wide, wet eyes, and a wide red mouth, and teeth that drops vertically out of the sky above him, a construction equal parts organic and inorganic in a fashion that Kaworu is incapable of recognising as cut-and-paste but which he recognises as shocking in the seconds before that gaping maw snaps shut over a passing Pterax and zips pout of sight horizontally, disappearing in just seconds and leaving him standing on a broken piece of temple stone.

"That wasn't normal, right?" He isn't afraid, just confused. And a little shocked.

ruin

[catpiper]

No.

[Well, she is afraid. The temple offers a reprieve she can't ignore and it feels like 99% of her problems can be solved by hiding in its depths. Other people have the same idea, so it doesn't surprise her when this guy appears among the wrecked walls.

What does is-yeah, that. Can she even say that's shocking? She had to fish her cat out of a bush after hours of searching. Had to find her way home more than once after wandering just a touch too far from camp. This thing, helpful as it sounds, is terrifying. It appears and vanishes, taking everything in its sight with it. Horrible. No, it's not normal in any sense of the word. She's seen actual, working, elevators before and they don't act this way.

Or maybe they did? The scientists might've had some way to keep them tame, but-

She can't even entertain that thought right now. Its presence makes her nervous, even if it's already out of sight.]

You should hide over here. It might see you.

[braceforimpact]

Is it alive?

[Kaworu makes no move to actually hide, and doesn't look at Ren at all. He's still staring into the sky at the last spot the... not-elevator could be seen, as though waiting for it to come back.

He isn't afraid of the not-elevator because he doesn't actually experience or understand fear. He knows that acting aware of danger is the 'correct' thing to do. But he still wants to know what it is.]

[catpiper]

[Does that matter?

He makes no move to turn back and she chalks that immobility up to being brave, quietly adding him to the list of people she needs to watch out for. Why does no one on this island want to hide?

The question itself makes her pause because it is? Maybe? Probably? It's moving and talking and while it's acting more like a short circuiting machine-robots have hearts. They're living things. It's also impossible to rule out possession-AIs and ghosts can turn harmless machines into nightmares in a heartbeat, making them a questionable sort of alive, but alive nonetheless.]

I don't know. I think that kind of thing-it might be.

[braceforimpact]

Hmmmm.

[Kaworu keeps staring into the sky--like he's still waiting for it to reappear.

It doesn't. And he can't... really do anything about that, can he?

Finally, he glances back at Ren, a smile on his face. Maybe it's supposed to be reassuring.]

Well, it's gone now. So there's nothing to hide from any more.

[catpiper]

[There's no fear in his eyes as he looks up at the sky and his lackluster response to all of this makes her pause once more.

Brave people don't see the world through the same lens she does, but it's gone for the time being and that reprieve is something she can appreciate. If the temple can keep out shadow monsters, then weird elevators are probably banned from zooming through. The problem will be leaving the vicinity and the thought of that fills her with absolute dread. Doubly so if she has to find a way to hide this new person who doesn't seem keen on ducking behind rocks to avoid Problems.

But she does step forward from her terrible hiding spot, taking some comfort in his smile.]

It doesn't scare you? That weird thing?

[braceforimpact]

No.

[Kaworu's smile persists, changing slightly for the confidence of his response, though his eye contact with her remains unbroken. It's not a normal level of eye contact. It's like he doesn't know when to stop. Or that he's ever supposed to.]

It ate a bird, and then left. I'm not a bird.

[It's delivered lightly, like this is pretty obvious to him.]

[catpiper]

[The staring contest doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest and she meets his gaze head on. There are a couple socialization kinks that need to be worked out with her, but she does enjoy looking at people, being with them, listening to their words, so-

Stare away. The point she wants to address is his view on the machine. It's not on an bird diet.]

It likes people too, but I think we taste bad, so it spits us out.

[Which is fine by her. Please don't eat her family.]

That's why you have to hide if you see it.

beach

[tokenflavortownie]

The things happening today have been as startling to Pyrrha as they have been a sort of... clarification. Boats came and left, people came and went. But there were things that were always here, lying deep beneath the water, just waiting to come out and... throw a party for the above-land denizens, it seemed. No wonder she found herself walking near the waters edge, searching for any sight of the Jormun.

It's no wonder then, that she falls into the line of sight of Kaworu. And, the moment she hears his statement, she's there in the sand with him.

"Something?" She cast her sharp gaze over the waters. "Was it a turtle? Or... or maybe it could have been one of the Jormun."

[braceforimpact]

There's a beat--maybe one complete tick of the second hand--before Kaworu actually breaks his gaze from the water, just long enough to see that she's followed his gaze.

"What are those?"

Turtles or Jormun. Kaworu has never heard of either one. In his defence, turtles have been extinct for exactly as long as he's been alive, and he assumes that whatever yor-mun are, they suffered a similar fate. Now, again, there is an ocean with life in it...

That's a strange thought.

[tokenflavortownie]

Pyrrha parks herself next to Kaworu, a metal broom in-hand, ready to put herself between whatever's in the water, and this new face. It's something she'll do even instinctively, so bring on the... the...

"Do you mean, the turtle?" She asks, confusion dipping into her tone. There's no threat here, and she can instantly recognize the rainbow hue of one of those slow-moving creatures.

[braceforimpact]

Pyrrha's readiness is admirable, even if it's totally wasted on Kaworu. Not just functionally, as there is absolutely nothing dangerous about turtles, but even performatively, since Kaworu has no idea what it's for.

Kaworu blinks at her, just once, in a way that's reminiscent of a cat.

"Yes. What's a turtle?" It's matter-of-fact, but fairly polite in tone. There's no trace of a joke here: just sincere inquiry, and a seemingly guileless but puzzled smile.

[tokenflavortownie]

In Pyrrha's mind, a bit of readiness isn't wasted on anybody.

"It's..." She looks back at him, and immediately notices his expression. This was a person that really didn't understand, and wasn't just pulling her leg, wasn't it? Oh my.

"Uh... Well, it's one of those creatures, the colorful ones with the shell." Teacher-mode activated. She points with the long end of her broom to the rainbow hues just under the waves. "They're creatures that live around here. Don't worry, they're basically harmless."

[braceforimpact]

Basically harmless? What does that even mean?

He gives Pyrrha a quizzical look, then stares back into the water. He's not afraid of the turtles, mind. It's a bit absurd to think about things in terms of their 'threat' to him at all--especially given his objective purpose.

But humans like their labels and definitions.... he'll just have to try again.

"But what are they?" Tell him something he doesn't know, Pyrrha.

Beach

[solperierat]

Ed stops for a moment to look at Kaworu, then glances out into the waters with a bored glance.

"...probably a fish. Tigersharks aren't sneaky enough to hide in that."

[braceforimpact]

Kaworu looks at Ed. He's wearing an odd, constrained expression, like Ed has something weird on his face and he's trying not to comment on it.

"Fish? Here?"

It's true that there used to be life in the ocean, but he's never seen it. The very act of his existence ended that phenomenon, and brought on a new era of artificial meat and increased sea levels the world over. The human population alone was halved by the event. Not that he remembers it, but those were the effects of Second Impact.

"I've never seen one." He looks back into the water.

"But I suppose I have now."

[solperierat]

Yes, he knows he has horns, very good job, A+ here's your cookie he is getting so tired of that look, fuck's sake.

Kaworu does get a very, very odd look for his response, though, and Ed's eyebrow crawls further up toward his hairline.

"...you've never seen a fish. Where the hell did you live?"

[braceforimpact]

"Japan," he replies matter-of-factly. There's no trace of irony or self-awareness in that response; he knows that the oceans used to contain life, he doesn't know what role fish play in the cultural, economic, and social history of one specific country, not even the country he was supposed to be part of.

He's already moved on from Ed's disbelief, though,taking a single step towards the water.

"I want to see another one."

You know. While he's here.

[solperierat]

"Japan." That...sounds like a lot of bullshit, because he's like ninety percent certain that Ginko knew what a fish was--but he'd been on Ryslig for a while, so what does Ed know? Other than more than this joker, obviously.

"Yeah, well you'll be seeing a lot of them if you want easy meat."

Beach

[forwearemany]

"Fish?"

The voice is obviously mechanical, as is the creature Kaworu will see should he choose to turn and look.

At least, it seems likely to be a fish of some variety.

[braceforimpact]

"...."

Kaworu looks at Legion.

He's used to hearing voices come out of inanimate objects. That's how SEELE communicates with the outside world. Flat black monoliths, illuminated by red text: SOUND ONLY.

They're not real--or not alive, rather, but the effect is the same. The person speaking to him is nowhere physically near him. But this isn't the case here.

He can tell.

Which is... weird. That's weird. It doesn't make sense.

"What are you?" he blurts out, instead of anything remotely relevant to the topic, or tactful, or polite.

[forwearemany]

Well, Legion doesn't seem offended at least.

They raise a headflp.

"We are Legion, relict of the Geth."

[braceforimpact]

"We?" Kaworu asks, and looks around. He didn't know anyone else was here--he doesn't see them, if they are. Maybe this thing is a representative? A detachment, or something like that.

But why is it here talking to him?

[forwearemany]

Affirmative. 1,183 programs reside within this platform.

(They are a swarm intelligence. Come on it can't be that hard to guess, they're even named after a swarm of demons from the bible.)

[braceforimpact]

[This may come as a shock, but SEELE did not actually take the time to sit Kaworu down and teach him the entire Bible. Just the relevant parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls and scripture as it pertains to that and Kaworu's existence... his sole objective.

So, Angels, not Demons.]

......

[He's having a really hard time grasping what that means.... is this like the S.C. Magi System? A creation of human ingenuity...? He doesn't understand any of this. He has no idea what's going on.]

Why are you here?