August Intro: All Will Fade and Petrify

[lifeaftr_mods]

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?

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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.

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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

[thermalwind]

It's fine. Not like you can help it. Hold on a second. [He shrugs it off. Takes a deep breath and draws out a white and black U shaped device. He turns his arm so it faces the pile. Light flares and a long blade bursts into existence, cutting through bone like paper.

It reverts and he pulls his arm back.]

I'll do this at intervals. It doesn't work all the time. [Keith cleans out what he cut out, shoving the bones aside and leaves her more space to work.]

I'm Keith.

[antepone]

[ She can't help but jump a little at the sudden appearance of the blade. It's incredible, the sorts of things that are here, the things that people can do. ]

Wow-- Um, thank you! [ It's certainly given her more room to work, and she's truly grateful. ]

It's nice to meet you, Keith. I'm Mira.

[thermalwind]

[He widens the hole they’re working with and backtracks, making a slope. No sense in trapping themselves.]

Pleasure. Okay, bit of a slope so we’re not stuck. When we’re tired we should break. If no one has put a call out for people to dig, I’ll do it.

[antepone]

[ Oh, that's a good idea. ]

Thank you. I think I can keep digging for some time... but how often can you use that blade?

[thermalwind]

Which one? [He holds up the bayard in one hand and his Marmora knife in the other. It too changes in a wash of light.]

I can use them as many times as I need to. Just the bayard isn't fixed yet. I'll have to trade favors to keep its form stable.

[antepone]

Incredible... I've never seen anything like them.

[ She thinks it's magic, but then again, there are so many things she has no idea about. ]

In any case... they're very helpful. I don't think I'd be able to get so much done if it weren't for you.

[thermalwind]

I'd have been a lot slower at this on my own. We're making this work together. [Teamwork something he really forgot for a time. Until he had to use it. Keith uses his knife to cut down on his side.]

Maybe we should stock emergency supplies in the temple from now on. Shovels and stuff like that.

[antepone]

Oh-- you're right.

[ She's so used to not being able to do anything, she guesses, that she downplays just how much she's helping. ]

Mm, that's a good idea. Ropes, first aid kits, flashlights... or matches, at least.

[thermalwind]

We have some leftover lanterns. We could ask for more as we need them.

[He reaches to his belt and taps the top of the lantern strapped in. Clear liquid sloshes around inside.]

They don't need any batteries or power source.