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 )

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[Her steps do start to come quicker, feeling her pace shift faster in turn. It's not the first time she's seen that helmet since Freelancer, but Caorlina had thought it would have been the last. Both owners had been dead, so who...

It is when she momentarily loses sight of her that Carolina finally does call out, mindful of the blindspot, and yet-]

Stop!

[Not that the armored individual seems to, and in some ways, Carolina can't blame them. It's a slew of emotions, as there are so many things that she would change, if she could, but Carolina knows that the past is written. There's no changing it.]

I want to talk. About that armor.

[ The hologram keeps walking for a few seconds, as if it hadn't heard the command at all...and then stops, and slowly turns.

It doesn't say anything, of course, but it does stay where it is, as if waiting for Carolina to speak. ]

[It's the lack of... almost anything that has Carolina drawing up to a pause a short distance away, a growing suspicious arising.]

Where did you get that armor.

[ This obviously isn't going to work for too much longer.

The hologram remains silent, and draws itself up to its full height, cocking its head as if not understanding what Carolina is saying.

Behind her, CT slowly gets to her feet, moving as silently as possible. She's a few yards behind Carolina now, and she thinks she just might be able to get onto the path behind her without being spotted.

At least Carolina's not attacking. Yet. But of course, she also doesn't think CT is CT. Just like Wash hadn't. ]

[There is something fishy going on, which is why Carolina's not moving. Rather, her mind is going over reasons as to why there is no response. If CT is looking closely enough, she might see Carolina tense ever so, before shifting her focus to one side and the other. It's not a normal reaction, what she's getting, which makes her wonder... She still doesn't suspect that it is actually CT though.]

[ Carolina definitely knows something is up; that much is clear from her posture, as well as the fact that she's no longer trying to interrogate the hologram.

But she also isn't advancing on it, or being otherwise aggressive. As silently as possible, CT eases her way over, stopping directly behind the other Freelancer and still a few yards away. She stops, deliberating for a moment. There's no way she's going to be able to avoid a confrontation - even if she ran off and escaped temporarily, she knows Carolina won't stop until she's tracked her down, now that she's caught sight of her. But there's not much more her hologram's going to be able to do for her, either.

Time to move this along, for better or worse.

With a flick of a switch, the hologram blinks out of existence. CT braces herself, ready to...well, hopefully she won't have to fight, this time. ]

[There would have been once where Carolina would have gone charging in. Getting caught up, especially in proving herself, had at the end of the day simply created more problems. She tries not to be that person, to leave all reason behind and forget about others. Her team mates are important to her, are her family, and since she's lost the one, she doesn't plan on losing another.

She notes how the image flickers away, and her helmet turns sharply, twisting to where she would be if the situation was reversed. And there... Her face remains poised, body facing away.]

Fancy trick you have there.

[ CT lowers her head slightly, gazing at Carolina through her helmet. She doesn't move otherwise.

She's still not attacking. There's no way she thinks this is really CT. Why would she? She'd died. ]

You've seen it before.

[ Her voice modulator is on. Cowardice? Or maybe she just want to feel, for a moment, as effortlessly cool as Carolina had always been. ]

[Effortlessly cool.

Carolina might have laughed had she known that. The reality of it was that maybe once, in those early years, she had been. After Tex... She'd been a mess, to put it politely.]

I have.

[Although there is that unspoken question of how do you know that that lingers between them as she turns. There's an alertness to her, but no other form of threat. She's not going to attack unless provoked, and even then it would be to defend herself.]

[ How does she know that? How does she think. She tilts her head, just as the hologram had. If Carolina wants to talk this out, fine. It's not what CT would have predicted from her, but she's not complaining.

Maybe things had changed. ]

So what's your theory, Agent Carolina? I know you must have one by now.

I have several.

[Her tone is neutral enough. It also suggest that she's likely not going to share any of them at the moment. Some of them are more reasonable, and others? Well, Carolina has come across many outlandish things since Freelancer.]

How about you start with a name.

[ She almost laughs, managing at the last minute to turn it into an almost-inaudible scoff. She wants to play it like that? Sure. ]

CT.

If you know anything about the history of that armor, you'd understand my skepticism.

{Carolina and Texas.

A helmet in the desert.

Dog tags that bore a certain name in the ship...]

Who says I don't?

[ She knows. Not only her own history, but at least some of the rest. What Wash had told her.

He took my armor?

She crosses her arms over her chest. ]

But I'm telling the truth.

[Ghosts, as she knows, don't exist.

They might have talked about Alpha being a ghost, but he wasn't. He was an AI. People who actually die stay dead.

Her hands move, yet not to her sides, or even to her weapons. Rather, it is to her helmet, undoing it and pulling it free. It's still that bright red hair, those striking green eyes, but there's lines around the edges now.]

A tomahawk to the chest.

[ There's no such thing as ghosts.

Except that, apparently, there is. Because CT watches as Carolina removes her helmet, and just stares. Carolina. She'd know it was her, of course, but seeing her now, a little older maybe but still just as intense...

She swallows, steeling herself. No room to let her intimidation show, once she's not hiding behind a mask anymore. Then, just as slowly, telegraphing her movements, she lifts her hands and removes her own helmet.

A tomahawk to the chest.

She lowers the helmet and shakes her hair out of her face. ]

I got better.

[The thing about falling off a cliff and staying fallen? People did just assume you were dead. Maybe not York, but he'd always had more trust in her than she'd had in herself. Not that any good had come out of it at the end of the day.

Yet those focused green eyes honed in, not quite a challenge in her expression, but close enough. There is a flicker there, brief and quick, as the face that is shown is familiar to her. Eat, train, fight, live- they had done it all together.

They had been the best.

Until they hadn't.

If it is a trick, it's a good one, as her gaze shifts over the other. It is like looking at an image of the past, and she's not entirely certain how to gauge that because she is standing, talking, not leaning over as if her life is slipping out of her hands...]

... looks like it.

[ Okay then.

Apparently they're not going to try to kill each other this time. CT swallows, the tension in her shoulders relaxing a little bit, but she doesn't move. Where do they go from here? She hesitates a moment, and then speaks again, sounding more like herself this time. ]

It's not a trick. Or a hallucination, or - I don't know, whatever you're probably thinking it is.

It's really me.

[Carolina hadn't wanted to kill her the last time either.

She... had just let the situation get out of control. She can see that now, looking back with those rose coloured glasses no longer there. Most things had fallen to the side in her desire to prove that she was the best, that she could beat Texas.

CT. She had always been more of a closed book to Carolina. Didn't get overly involved with most things, although having found her dog tags, she can think about appearances being deceiving. Most things about the Project were in the end though. The wool had been over her own eyes, even after it was too late.]

... I'm honestly starting to wonder if they spiked my food.

[Although the mushrooms hadn't done anything like this. She also had no temple to mess with her head.]

But they know I'd punch them if they did.

[ She smiles at that, small but undeniably there. If there had been any question about whether this was really Carolina, that would have answered it. ]

They didn't.

[ Or if they had, if there had been another incident like the flowers that had blinded CT and nearly drowned Wash in his memories, it wouldn't have been on purpose. And it isn't the reason that Carolina's seeing CT before her now.

She hesitates. There's a lot to explain, and she doesn't know where to start, or if Carolina would believe any of it. Better to start with something easy. ]

Wash is here too.

[Really, sometimes a good punch does solve all the issues... Although diplomacy has it's place as well.

She lets her mind wander for a moment. CT wouldn't have known what had happened after- well, after that axe. Carolina knows that now. She had wondered how her armor had ended up in the desert, but that mystery had been solved.

There might be a mixed reaction to that, relief and concern. Whatever this is, she'd rather the rest remain somewhere safe and out of it. They'd been through enough, all of them, all culminating in the loss of Epsilon.]

He's okay?

He's Wash.

[ A half-apologetic shrug accompanies the words. Carolina probably understands what that means even better than CT does. After all, she'd been there. She'd seen what had happened with Epsilon, with everything after, not just heard about it after the fact. Okay?

Is Wash ever gonna be okay again?

But a moment later, she nods. Wash is still breathing, he's sane much more than he isn't. He may be harder, more paranoid, more jaded than he'd been when CT had known him, but he's keeping it together. She's even gotten a glimpse of the old Wash once or twice. ]

He's okay. He's doing okay.

[She does.

But if he's relatively in one piece, then it is a good day. Retirement had been... a big change of pace for all of them. Well, scratch that. For some of them. Carolina and Wash. The rest of the Reds and Blues had taken to it like fish in water.]

Good. Good.

[And how much does she know? About everything that had happened after... There's so much about the fall of Project Freelancer and the fate of various players within it.]

... and you?

[ CT pauses for a moment, then tilts her head to one side. ]

Do you care?

[ It's not sarcastic or cruel. It's an honest, genuine question. Carolina had been right there beside Tex. She might not have struck the killing blow, but she'd been just as determined to bring CT in, just as disinclined to listen to anything she had to say, no matter how desperately CT pleaded. And it's not as if they'd ever been best friends before that, either.

She knows things had changed after she'd died. But how much? Had Carolina changed? ]

[Bring her in, alive, but she had also been the one to speak about just letting CT go. Not that CT knew of how she had tried to push her armor off as old. It hadn't worked, either.

Once, Carolina would have brushed her off. Why would she have believed anything that Connie had spoken about? No, Carolina knows that even if CT had gotten a work in otherwise, she wouldn't have taken it to be true.]

I wouldn't ask if I didn't.

[That much is true.]

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