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

[The good news: the Drifter is getting through very quickly - much quicker than they'd initially anticipated. The metal has grown rusted and weak over time, thus making it easier for them to carve their way in. The bad news: this has made the ground beneath them exceptionally weak.]

[So it happens that the Drifter tumbles end over end, straight into the pit beneath, in a shower of metallic fragments and dead flowers and clods of earth. The sunlight flares across their cloak, painting it in the bright vermillion it is, and they straighten up almost immediately despite the rather rocky fall. The stripe of blue skin visible beneath their helmet houses a pair of dark, beetle-black eyes that scan their surroundings swiftly before settling at last on the only other living person they can see.]

[The Drifter waves. Hello.]

[Practice and steady nerves keep Ray from drawing breath or shrieking when the maybe-a-lingered comes crashing through. ...but it doesn't seem to matter, since it can clearly see her. And is... waving?

Rey lets her one hand fall from her mouth to her side. She feels a measure of relief that this person, strange as they are, doesn't seem hostile.]

You can see me? Who-- [And also what] --who are you?

[You can see me? is an atypical question for one such as they to be asked. The Drifter tips their head to one side, inquisitive, but they do not speak. It's nothing personal, you see - they simply can't.]

[There is a small, prismatic object hovering at their shoulder, about the size and shape of a soda can. It projects a faint, translucent screen in midair, a HUD upon which a line of geometric text is issued:]

drifter
are you ok

[The object is so far beyond Ray's concept of technology that it seems like magic--which isn't something familiar to her, but it is something that she's just getting used to accepting. She stares, wide-eyed, then nods her head.]

Yes, I'm fine... [She raises the bone.] I was just looking for a clue to a way out.

[And oh! She quickly adds:]

I'm Ray. Nice to meet you, Drifter.

[It is a peculiar thing, to be called that by name more and more often. It began as a means to dismiss queries as to their title, which they considered unimportant. It has since matured into an actual name of sorts.]

[Of course, this is telegraphed solely by their slow, wondering blink before they press on.]

need way out?

[She bobs her head quickly.]

Yes! Yes, I do. I don't know how I even got down here.

Can we climb back out the way you came?

[Craning her neck, she steps closer to look up the hole Drifter fell through.]

[The Drifter glances upward to regard the streaking sunlight peering in from the gap they've made in the ceiling (floor?), and nods, even if they're not entirely sure they can.]

can try
watch for metal

[They prod at one of the sharp, rusted edges of the metallic composite that must have once been a wall, now crumpled and jutting oddly out from the crumbled earth. They move back to allow her forward.]

I will. Let me try.

[Now that she's looking at it, the hole seems more daunting than she'd originally expected. There isn't too much in the way of handholds or footholds, and she's not so keen on the idea of grabbing for the metal pieces, especially not after that warning.

But let's give this a shot anyway. She takes in a deep breath and tries to spring up and grab on to one of the dirt side--which just crumbles under her hand as she slides back down, with little ceremony.

Somewhat embarrassed, she turns back to the Drifter.]

Is there something we can wedge in there for a better grip?

[The most immediate answer to that is yes, and their sword would make an adequate handhold...but they're also hardly the one to relinquish their weapon to an absolute stranger, even if she seems rather young. Seems young - because it is difficult to know for certain, they have learned.]

[She might be light enough for them to give her a boost, but they are a fragile creature, the Drifter, and they're not liable to take that risk.]

[They do have something else, however, even if it takes them a moment to dig it out. The Drifter extricates it from their pack and then proudly presents it to her, to this actual and literal child, with the plain expectation that she should be able to use it:]

[An ancient, rusted hatchet.]

[Perfect!]

[Yes, perfect! That's why Ray's kind of staring at it with no comprehension.]

Um... thank you.

[She takes it and grips it awkwardly, as if she's not sure if she should be afraid of it hurting her or of breaking it.]

And I just... climb with this? [...] I don't mean to insult your gift, but it won't break, will it?

not using it

[So...they don't really care what happens to it, essentially. It wasn't of much use when it was just lying in their pack, after all. Someone else may as well use it as an impromptu climbing tool.]

might help?

...I'll try it out. Thank you, I mean it.

[She doesn't want to seem ungrateful, especially when this person is probably her only chance out of the hole.

The ax is indeed much better equipped to dig into the dirt wall than her fingers, and she's finally able to inch herself upwards by using the ax to hang on and then wedging herself against the opposite wall. Bit by bit, she works her way up until she gets to a point where she can scramble all the way out.

She peeks back down the hole.]

Are you able to get up?

[Hm. They're not quite sure yet, but they're about to find out. The Drifter draws their hard light blade and it springs to life with a cerulean glow, and they dig it into the grass and earth in much the same way Ray just did.]

[Their motions are smooth and practiced when they claw at the earth, haul themself out and into the open air again, but their breath is faintly labored and rasping behind their mantle.]

yes

Good.

[Now that they're not underground, Ray takes a moment to scan their surroundings, but her eyes are drawn back to the glowing sword.]

What is that?

[If it weren't, well, a sword, she'd want to touch it.]

sword

[Thanks, Drifter, that's very helpful and informative of you. But they have at least grown used to people staring by now, and so instead of putting the blade away immediately as they would typically, they hold it out flat. Their hand hovers just beneath the blade, but they do not touch it.]

a drifter's weapon

[She nods, taking it all in, then recalls that she should hand the ax back over. Gently, she brushes off some of the dirt from her ascent and offers it handle first.]

Why do you have so many weapons?

a drifter fights

[That is answer enough, in their mind: drifters are nomadic warriors, and they fight. They regard the hatchet for a moment before glancing back at the child with a careful blink.]

need weapon?

["A drifter"? She hadn't noticed that before--so is that not a name at all? How strange.

She wants to ask but pauses when the question comes.]

...I'm not sure if I'd do a very good job of using it. Is it dangerous in this place?

yes

[Thanks, buddy, for your direct answer. At least they're not hedging, here.]

not on this island
but on others

[Honesty is the best policy.]

Dangerous how? Where?

hostile creatures
carnivorous predators
dangerous terrain
black hole

[Yep, there's one of those just chilling on Ensō. The Drifter does not react to this list in any way that would indicate such a thing is shocking to them. That text-based monotone is just as likely to be reassuring as it is off-putting.]

[The needle swings in between reassuring and unsettling for Ray, and her brow tightens. "Hostile creatures" could mean something like the lingered, which she can deal with--but they're not pleasant. The rest, she doesn't have much experience with.]

A black hole? The space kind?

[She's very vaguely familiar with the concept, enough to be worried.]

likely

[They're not terribly familiar with black holes as a concept, so they assume that - yes, that's exactly the kind of black hole it is.]

stay away from it

[THANKS DRIFTER THAT WAS FAIRLY IMPLICIT]

[Don't need to tell her twice!]

I'll do my best--I'm not going to seek that kind of thing out. But... how is something like that even here?

[--Perhaps she should get a more practical and less existential question out of the way first:]

And where is it?

[The Drifter pulls up a second HUD. It hovers just beside the first one, translucent and pale pink - and depicting a rough geographical representation of the island of Ensō.]

[Definitely not Umui, not that they bother to clarify this. They tap one of the squares near the island's center.]

here

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