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

When did I ever say I wanted your help-

[Ardyn half-snarled that remark, the end punctuated by a sharp cough into he back of his hand.]

['Back in the desert' she doesn't say, knowing it isn't likely to do any good. Instead:]

I'd say that you're old enough to know the difference between things we want and things we need, by now.

[Still polite, even in extremity, she asks before she reaches out to touch his hand and examine the flowers.]

May I?

Absolutely not. [There was a brief trail of smokelike black miasma as he quickly swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, a few small petals scattering as he pulled his gloves into place and adjusted his sleeves.]

Just leave me alone.

That, we both know I won't do.

[She doesn't touch him, with permission ungranted, but she does pick up one of the scattered petals and examine it with an assessing eye.]

Either I can help you, in which case I intend to, or I can't. In which case you most certainly should not be left alone.

[He's died alone often enough, she suspects.]

I find it astounding that so many of you claim to care about me only to disregard every word I say. I neither need nor do I want your help, and all I desire is for you to just leave. How much clearer must I-

[Another sharp cough into his hand, accompanied by a wince of something resembling pain.]

I care quite strongly about you, I simply don't agree with you.

[Her voice softens again.]

And we both know that at least part of that isn't true. At the very least, I can offer you a bit less pain.

I don't care. For the last time, leave before I force you to.

No.

[Well, at least she can give him a simple, direct answer.]

[Muffet remains beside him, still perfectly calm and poised as always, not backing down even a fraction of an inch. If he wants her to move, then he can move her.]

[Ardyn didn't seem to be in any mood for playing games today; a flicker of fire came to his hand with the vague smell of burning plantlife, a weak Fire spell thrown in Muffet's direction with a twitch of his hand.]

[...More likely it would veer a bit wildly to one side, where his aim wasn't all that great right now.]

[Muffet hastily ducks, letting the fire spell miss her and land somewhere in an unfortunate tree behind them. She's compassionate, not suicidal- whatever Ardyn might have to say on the subject.]

[But she still doesn't move away.]

[She gives him a vaguely exasperated look, some odd combination of tired, rueful, and fond.]

Now, what did that accomplish?

The next one isn't going to miss.

[Muffet looks him dead in the eyes and replies:]

Then why haven't you thrown it yet?

[Okay, so we're doing this.]

[If that's how you want to play, sure.]

[Might want to dodge that second spell coming for you, Muffet.]

[And she does- by throwing herself past it, lunging forward hastily from her kneeling position and landing directly on top of Ardyn with a muffled 'oof'.]

[If you were trying to get her away from you, Ardyn, this seems to be having the opposite effect.]

[OW FUCK SHIT GODDAMMIT]

[Luckily for Muffet, he was actually in a fair amount of pain what with all the flowers, so he was just going to lie there quite stunned for a bit rather than shove her off. Probably seeing very ironic stars.]

[At... at least she's fairly light?]

[Muffet doesn't seem terribly thrilled about this either, awkwardly pushing herself back up into a sitting position and brushing herself off. She grimaces as she plucks a stray spray of his heliotropes out of her hair.]

Really, as if one type of flower wasn't enough to deal with.

...why can't you just leave well enough alone?

A combination of caring about you and sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.

[Well, it's an honest answer. Muffet sighs wearily and leans back against the tree, sitting side by side with Ardyn.]

...I am sorry for landing on you like that.

August Intro: All Will Fade and Petrify

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