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

... sorry to break it to you, but it's still the day you left there most likely. Think of it as moving linearly through time.

[Or something like that. The Doctor would be better at this.]

[ oh. ]

You mean--no time has passed back at home? It's as if I've never left?

Don't know about that, but probably. This place doesn't work the same like the last place I was in.

Would you mind elaborating on that?

I... was taken to a place over four thousand years into my future, but time didn't stop. It went on. I have been gone for over a year, which I only know because my best friend showed up and told me. Yet it's different here... I'm no time expert, so I can't explain it.

[ she's quiet as she listens to nari speak. hifumi may not be able to relate at all, but she can listen. it's one thing she's learned to be good, thanks to her parents. ]

I can't say I understand your circumstances, Nari, but I am sorry that you've had to endure so much. I imagine that going through so many changes hasn't been easy on you.

It wasn't easy. I... don't want to go into details. Not right now. Today has been a little too much of a shaker to make me want to share much.

[Shrugging, Nari keeps leading.] I don't regret the year, though. I made family, I am pre-engaged, and I'm in a place where I can do good. If I wasn't lazy as fuck most of the time.

[ she shakes her head. ] I won't ask.

[ hifumi is a pretty private person herself until she gets to know someone, so she understands wanting to keep things on the dl. ]

Though...it's nice to hear that you've used your circumstances to make the best of things. It's admirable.

Eh. Maybe. Like I said, I am lazy. But my best friends here so I try and help her with her plants. Remember when I asked if you had powers?

[Nari raises a hand, snapping her fingers and making a flame appear.]

I got a lot.

[ oh my god? hifumi sees the flame and she takes several steps back, covering her mouth in shock. that shouldn't be happening--none of this should be happening. and yet, here we are, learning about aliens and fire powers and mythical creatures. everything is happening So Much. ]

...Um... That's--not just a magic trick, is it?

I wish it was magic. Less tiring. But nope. I am a person with mutated genes. [She waves the flame out, dropping the temperature around them about ten degrees.]

I used to hate my powers. Now I love them.

...Incredible...

[ she actually seems very fascinated by this, and with how the temperature drops, hifumi can tell that it's real. ]

Things like this are generally unheard of. Though...I don't suppose you've heard of the Phantom Thieves, have you?

... I have, actually. Akira Kurusu. Or Joker. He was.... It's complicated as to how I know him. He was here for a while, but I think he left.

[The temperature returns to normal as she takes a deep breath.]

Sometimes people just disappear.

[ she gasps. ] Kurusu-san?! He was here, too?

[ but how can that be, she almost says, until she remembers what nari said about time and how it doesn't pass, as if you'd never left.

does that mean...the akira who'd been talking to her that whole time had gone through all of this, and she never knew? had he been suffering? was he really hiding all of this behind the calm, leveled look he always wears--behind the warm smile that comforted her when she needed someone the most? ]

Kurusu-san... I'm... [ she lowers her gaze. ] I'm so sorry.

Yeah. He was.

[This isn't one of Nari's friends. Not someone she can reach out to and hug, pat on the shoulder, joke around with... so she's at a loss at what to do to cheer Hifumi up.

Which is why she's so happy when Kipsie decides to quietly hum more songs.]

I'm sure he would appreciate the sentiment the next time you see him. Everyone should get to know how important they are to someone, and it might be a little much of me... but you two seem close from your reaction.

No, you're...you're right.

[ kipsie's songs are soothing, and she gives her another round of pets as she continues to follow nari to their destination. ]

I...I hoped that I was able to convey how much I valued our friendship, but... I hadn't even considered his feelings--if I'd just asked him how he was feeling, maybe he would have told me about this.

[This is why galaxy pigeons are best.]

I dunno.... with what happens here, I don't think he would have told anyone. Not unless he thought they would trust him not to sound like an insane man.

That's...that's true. And yet...

[ she believed him when they changed her mother's heart. she believed him when he told her he was a phantom thief. it's more than likely she would have believed him if he told her about this, too. ]

...No, fretting over something like this won't do me any good, in the end. I'll just have to extend my deepest apologies to him the next time we meet...

.... Ya know, it's refreshing coming across someone who refuses to fret. Everyone in my life does in one way or another, and it kills me watching them struggle. So thanks, Hifumi, you're a good bean.

O-Oh...

[ it's not that hifumi doesn't fret. it's that she's learned to keep on moving forward, even when faced with adversity. she's got a ton of things she's worried about, but she's learned to take those worries and try to do something good with them rather than continuously beat herself up over things that are out of her control.

at least for now. ]

I...um, thank you, Nari.

[Moving forward is the best way to go. It's healthy, it's stabilizing. And for someone so young to realize that is admirable. Nari would be jealous if she knew that about Hifumi. She, herself, was bad at moving forward.]

Don't need ta thank me. Not till we got you settle in a house or something. Can't really offer my place because I live with my girlfriend and a friend of ours and... yeah, it's not exactly quiet there.

Ah, it's alright, Nari. I've situated myself somewhere with Damianos-san and Laurent-san.

[ she gives her a nod. ] But...I'd still like to look around, in any case. It'd be best to get familiarized with the area.

Don't know them, but cool cool. It sucks to live alone here, so good on ya for finding peeps to chill with.

[She shrugs at that.] I don't mind playing guide.

I would argue that they found me, actually. But...yes, anything you'd like to show me would be appreciated.

Then they're good people looking out for newbies. And I just got a few things to show. Mira's greenhouse, Denny, the different areas people live in. That's about it.

(no subject)

shogis - 2018-08-06 04:01 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only