lifeaftr | 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

Damianos...I'll remember that.

[ the man who saved her life. ]

I'm in your debt, Damianos-san. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to repay you.

I don't keep track of that sort of thing. [It's a very Veretian thing to do, keep track of the ways people owe you.] If I did, my husband and I would spend all our time trying to cancel out our debts to each other.

[They're technically not married yet, but at the same time? They were basically married in Damen's mind even before he proposed and he'll call Laurent his husband if he wants to. He gave up a kindgom for Laurent, once. He's earned the right to call Laurent whatever he wants.]

I see...

[ how kind of him. hifumi thinks he has a kind heart, and she smiles earnestly at him. ]

Still, I'd like to do something for you regardless. Perhaps it'll just need to be a surprise... [ a pause, then: ] Um... I would like to ask, though, if you know what's going on? Where are we, and why have I woken up here?

Do you remember a dream you had near a fire where a rabbit spoke to you? [It's always easiest to start there and work backwards to fill in the gaps, he's found.] That's the basic shape of the situation: we've been brought here by some force unknown, and are now under the care of the Storyteller. Currently, we are on an island called Umui to gather resources to take back to the island of Ensō, which is the Storyteller's domain.

[Damen pauses, to let all of that sink in and let Hifumi ask any questions she might already have because, y'know. He's had like eight months to adjust here and he remembers how shitty those first few days were.]

[ a storyteller? islands she's never heard of before? and yet, the dream about the rabbit is the only thing that feels familiar to her. hifumi suddenly frowns, eyes wide.

they certainly aren't in japan anymore. ]

I...I don't understand. I don't recall ever signing up for such a thing...

It's not a thing one signs up for. It's a thing one is chosen for.

[Jury's still out on whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, honestly. Damen's opinion of the Storyteller trends towards positive, unlike some people. He knows that gods can be fickle, but he believes that the Storyteller isn't to blame for them arriving here.]

Whether we like it or not, we are all stuck here and it's in our best interests to help each other wherever possible. Everyone has something they can contribute.

[Even his useless royal ass.]

Chosen? But...why? Why me?

[ she frowns deeply, brow knitting as she tries to process this. hifumi doesn't think she's very special at all, especially considering recent events that have happened back at home. ]

I...I'm not even sure what I can contribute to a situation like this.

I can't answer that. I don't pretend to know how the gods think or how they use us in their games.

[He's pretty comfortable with the idea of gods just casually fucking around with human lives. Perks of being from fake Ancient Greece.]

But I know you can find a place here, even if you can't see it yet. There are plenty of people who will help you find it, myself included.

I see.

[ that's. slightly frightening, but okay. ]

I'm...glad to hear it, and I'm grateful. I... Right now, I'm just at a loss of where to start. Should I find somewhere to stay?

You can stay with us, if you'd like.

[Laurent will agree if Damen looks enough like a kicked puppy. Of that much, Damen is certain.]

First, however, I should retrieve your pack from down there.

O-Oh, that's--

[ improper?? probably. definitely. but if there's really nowhere else, she'll consider it. ]

Ah, yes...is there a way that I can help?

[Damen sees like zero problems with this because it's not like he's Veretian? Besides, she's jailbait and he's (going to be) married. No big.]

Well, if you see it while I'm down there, don't be afraid to point it out.

[He's literally just going to jump down and start moving stuff around. It's fine. Nothing about this is ultra-dangerous or anything.]

Alright...please be careful. Should you get injured, I have a first aid kit with me.

[ please don't get injured, damen. she watches him jump down effortlessly, and she's pretty nervous about everything like. collapsing on him or something, so she keeps her eyes peeled.

as he's digging, something akin to a bag starts to pop up to his left. ]

Ah! Check to your left--that might be it!

[The good news is that the walls are probably not in danger of collapsing too. The bad news is I rolled a 7 so like. The metal is definitely sharp and in the process of trying to get her bag he cuts himself. It's fine, in that he's definitely suffered worse, but he does definitely have some trouble getting back up to where Hifumi is.]

Laurent is going to be so annoyed with me. [He doesn't seem particularly concerned about, y'know. Being injured.] It's nothing a bandage won't fix, though.

D-Damianos-san!

[ she tries to go down a little to help him out, extending a hand to pull him out of the wreckage. he has her bag, sure, but at what cost. she frowns deeply. ]

Once you're out, we can bandage you up. I'm so sorry...

August Intro: All Will Fade and Petrify

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