lifeaftr | August Intro: All Will Fade and Petrify

August Intro: All Will Fade and Petrify

INTRO LOG: AUGUST

Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: August 4th and onward
Where: Primarily Umui, though Ensō is also likely
Warnings: Mark as needed!

New Arrivals: Bury Me Alive
When you wake, it's initially to darkness: musty, stuffy, and dense. Your eyes may take some time to adjust, but when they do, something will rapidly become apparent - namely, the fact that you're underground.

Exploring your surroundings will reveal a few more unnerving discoveries. Take, for example, the fact that you're currently trapped in what appears to be a number of buried houses, walls and ceilings compressed against one another thanks to time and pressure. The walls may have held up the weight of the soil above your head for a time, but it'd likely be best not to hold out hope that they'll continue to last. Your supply of air down here is rather limited, after all.

Unfortunately for you, it's not merely earth that separates you from the surface. It's also flowers in rich abundance - an untold, innumerable weight of dead and decaying plant matter, twined around the ancient bones strewn underground along with your sweet self, pressing down from above, peeking through the cracks in the metallic folds of whatever material once comprised these buildings' ceilings, walls, and floors.

Whether it's a mass tomb or something more sinister, you'd better figure a way out, and quickly. If you didn't show up with a shovel or some means of teleporting yourself out, you may very well need to resign yourself to digging your way out or making a lot of noise to attract someone who can, before this becomes a more dedicated grave.

Everyone Else: All Will Change and Calcify
As for the rest of you, well...if you're anywhere near the regions of G5, you might hear the sounds of a not-insignificant number of people finding themselves displaced underground, and requiring your imminent assistance in getting out. Perhaps you'll recognize the place. It is, after all, very well marked. They'll probably be properly grateful if you mind offering the help, and hey - it's a welcome break from the eerie, ever-present silence that clouds almost the entirety of Umui. As long as you don't mind digging around that old cenotaph half-buried in the flowers and scraping through sheets of metal, a lot of flowers, and...oh, yes. The first bones you'd be finding since arriving here.

If you've been hanging around the laboratory near the island mana pool, on the other hand, you'll definitely be getting a break from the silence - namely in the form of ARUM-25, whom a number of you have been devoted to repairing since their discovery, learning that a great deal of their systems have come back online, right around the time that the newest arrivals are properly unearthed.

Including their diagnostic systems.

The warning, repeated shrills will undoubtedly be heard by anyone who passes:

ALERT: STAGE ONE DETECTED
ALERT: STAGE ONE DETECTED
ALERT: STAGE ONE DETECTED
ALERT: STAGE ONE DETECTED
ALERT: STAGE ONE DETECTED

And that's probably fine. Right?

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

[ so they're both lost. this is...not exactly the best situation they've been pulled into, but hifumi is determined to do what she can so both of them can escape. she's afraid, but thinking of what the phantom thieves have done for her certainly helps in giving her courage. ]

I don't think I am, either. And...I'm Hifumi Togo. It's nice to meet you, despite the circumstances.

[ she starts looking through her knapsack. ] Would you happen to have anything that could help us dig our way out of here?

[At any rate, it was a relief to learn that neither of them were injured.]

Great! It's nice to meet you, Hifumi. [She's just going to chuckle a little at that.] Yea, I think I would've chosen a less ridiculous way if it were up to me.

[Or a more normal way. With sunlight. And no weird bones or things.]

Oh uh... [That's a good question, actually, so she's going to follow Hifumi's lead and rummage around in her bag.]

... I have a saw? Or my bayard might be more useful for trying to slice through things!

[ indeed! it is a pretty big relief, and honestly, injuries are the last thing they need right now. ]

Try your bayard first?

[ though hifumi has absolutely no idea what they're doing with a bayard... ]

I'm not quite sure how it'd work, but if you think it'd be more useful...

What about you? Anything useful for digging in that bag?

[Did she really want to risk using her bayard as a shovel? Maybe. But if they had no other option...]

I mean... I'm not sure how well it would work. But I feel like a saw would be less useful for digging. Man! Too bad we don't have a shovel.

Let's see...

[ nope. nothing really, until she comes across the recallback. at first she thinks they could try to just use it to start scraping at the ceiling, but she sees the instructions and reads over them thoroughly.

... ]

I see... What do you think about using this, Pidge-san?

[ she holds the stick out for pidge to look at. ]

[She might have been trying to decide if her bayard would be enough to get them out of here, but she's glancing up when Hifumi speaks again.]

A stick?

[Pardon her if she's a little skeptical at first, but she'll still take the offered item and look it over.]

I also have a rope. And uh... my bayard can also be used as a grappling hook! But I feel like we'd need to figure out a way out of here before that would be helpful. What else have you got?

[There's also that weird bottle of glowy liquid she noticed, but Pidge isn't entirely sure what to do with that just now.]

Oh--I'm sorry, I should have clarified. The instructions say that this will teleport us to a mana pool near a place called "Ensō'".

[ hmm. ] Perhaps we should try some of the things you have, first; this is a one-time use, according to the instructions. The rope you have seems very useful, for instance.

...Everything else I have is in here.

[ and lo and behold, her inventory! ]

Edited 2018-08-04 07:34 (UTC)

[Okay that was... actually really cool.

How unfortunate that it was only a single-use item.]

If it's only a one-shot thing, I don't want to use it if we don't absolutely have to.

[Especially if they could figure out a way to use what they had to get out. The rope would be particularly useful, even if it's about as low tech as they could get at the moment.]

I guess everyone ends up with different stuff in their bags. That's good to know.

[She took a moment to reorganize everything in her bag, but kept the rope out.] Okay! I think the first thing we need to do is try to find higher ground. Maybe we'll be able to get a better idea of what we're dealing with.

I agree. It may come in handy later; and we don't know what Enso is like, either. We should only use this if we exhaust all of our other options.

[ she puts the recallback back in her bag. ] Unfortunately, I think that's the most useful thing I have with me at the moment. But...yes, higher ground sounds like a good plan. Which direction should we go in?

Yep! If we both had one, I'd say we could just use it and be done with... whatever this place is supposed to be. But I feel like we can figure this out even without the fancy stick~

[Or at least she's going to hope so. They could absolutely figure this out if they put their heads together, right?

That question had her pausing, though, and looking around.]

Hmm... good question! Do you think we could climb up onto one of these buildings? [Because what could possibly go wrong there?]

Definitely.

[ she tries her best to give pidge a reassuring smile despite herself, and looks up at the structures above them. they're terribly worn, falling apart...but...what other options do they have?

not many, that's for sure. ]

We can certainly try, with the supplies you've been given. With your bayard, perhaps you can find your way up there first, lower the rope, and I can climb my way up?

[It's only now that they're talking about considering climbing up there that she's actually... looking at the buildings in question. They looked pretty worn down and not terribly sturdy.]

That might work.

[But did she really want to risk Hifumi's safety if they turned out to be close to falling apart?]

I'm smaller than you. What if I climb up there and take a look around and we go from there?

Alright. Um...if you're comfortable being by yourself, then by all means, please proceed.

[ she gives pidge a nod for encouragement. ] I'll wait down here for your signal?

I just uh... those buildings don't look terribly sturdy.

[But she had no problem risking her own safety.]

But yea! I'm good with going up there on my own. [With that, she's turning back to try and decide the best way to go about it. Her bayard would make it easy, but there was still some very real risk involved.] I'll come right back down when I figure out the best path out of here!

[ indeed they don't, and that honestly worries hifumi even more. but pidge's plan is solid, and hifumi isn't going to stop them if that's what they think is best. ]

Good luck, and please be careful, Pidge-san. If you get hurt, I have a first aid kit with me, but please try to come out of this unscathed.

[Maybe she should've been a little more worried about trying to go up there, but this wasn't the first time she'd taken risks.]

Don't worry! I'm always careful. I'm probably not going to get hurt.

[Fortunately she's a lot more nimble than people would expect. With no further adieu, she lifted her bayard and aimed for a slightly higher point than where she was actually trying for. After a brief moment of hoping it would work, the grapple decided to deploy and she went flying before she could even think about questioning it.]

[ WELL THEN. hifumi's eyes go wide and she gasps, hand flying over her mouth as pidge goes flying. ]

P-Pidge-san! Are you alright?!

[It wasn't even the first time she'd done this, and she still let out a little squeal as she went hurtling toward the nearest building. Somehow she managed to pull herself up onto the building with minimal trouble and then she moved to wave at Hifumi.]

Hey! It's good. I'm fine!

Oh, thank goodness...

[ nice one, pidge! hifumi lets out a sigh of relief before she smiles up at her. ]

How does it feel? Do you think I can make my way up there without it collapsing?

[Now that this was happening, she felt a lot more at ease with it. On the other hand, she still couldn't tell how sturdy this building was going to be if Hifumi tried to come up as well.

Still, she takes an experimental, slow step. When the structure doesn't immediately crumble to the ground, she's able to breathe a bit easier.]

It seems... safe enough for now! Do you want to risk coming up? Because I'm not sure how safe it is... and we might be in trouble if both of us get hurt.

That seems a little risky...

[ and she doesn't want to put pidge in danger, either. hifumi hums in thought for a moment before she gets another idea. it could possibly work, but it'd depend on a few things. ]

Can you tell me how long the rope is?

Maybe it is a little risky. But we can do it!

[She was just trying to decide if she could manage to grapple Hifumi and pull her up when the other girl spoke up again, and Pidge blinked. Oh right! It took her a moment to dig the rope out, and she considered it thoughtfully for a minute.]

I can't say for sure! But we can try the rope, and if it's not long enough I could come back down for you. Or we could use my bayard~ [That would probably work.]

Actually... The only problem with the rope is that I...admittedly don't have a whole lot of upper body strength...

[ she's pretty embarrassed to admit it. hifumi is not very fit at all. (hopefully that'll change over the duration of her stay here.) ]

Should we try your bayard?

[Well that certainly wasn't what she'd been expecting to hear. But it was fine!]

Hey. That's okay! [Could they use her bayard, though? She'd probably have to try and grapple Hifumi with it and then pull her up, which might not be the most fun for the girl.]

Okay. I have an idea! Do you trust me?

Yes, I do! Whatever idea you have, I'm willing to try.

[ pidge already seems very smart, and hifumi nods at her in encouragement. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

August Intro: All Will Fade and Petrify

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject