August Intro: All Will Fade and Petrify

[lifeaftr_mods]

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 )

Comments

[liveasmyself]

[It's good to have someone understand; Ray smiles and finally finds herself relaxing as much as she can while being stuck underground. And having someone make jokes about the earth collapsing on her.]

...Thanks.

[Hacking away at the soil is hard work, but some elbow grease eventually gets Ray's bone tool to bump into a pocket that's frighteningly unsteady--it doesn't cause a cave in (yet), but a chunk of the soil abruptly crumbles and lets in a shaft of light about the width of a soup can.

Here, have a leg bone popping out of the ground! And a hand attached to it.]

I think I got through!

[bitch4bitch]

[Boy that'd be alarming under different circumstances. Erika does jump a bit when it bursts through, but then she grins and leans down to sort of pat that hand before she starts digging at the surrounding dirt.]

I see ya! Gonna start opening that up, careful of the dirt down there.

[liveasmyself]

[Ray beams when Erika reaches down. So close to freedom!]

Yes, hello!

[It feels silly to say such a simple greeting at a time like this, but she's happy and can't help herself.]

I'll be careful and dig from this side as well. I think if the hole gets wide enough, I can try to climb my way up.

[It's hard to dodge dirt clods while also digging, but she does her best (and takes some dirt to the face all the same) as they get the opening to a better size.]

[bitch4bitch]

[The circumstances may be tense, but it's definitely pretty exciting to be making progress.]

Nice! I think we got this.

[She keeps digging the dirt out of the way from her end, until they've managed to open the hole up far enough that a person should be able to fit through.]

--Hey, there you are!

[liveasmyself]

[Escape is in sight! Ray can breathe easier with more fresh air coming in and a friendly face clearly visible above.]

I'm coming up now.

[She considers leaving her bone tool, but she's not confident of what kind of grip she'll get in the soil with just her hands. So she sizes up the path upward and starts climbing, jamming the bone into the earth to help her keep from falling.

After quite a bit of frantic scrabbling later, she's on the surface--scuffed, a little winded, but beaming and grateful.]

Thank you--I can't thank you enough for your help!

[bitch4bitch]

There ya go! [Erika stays crouched by the hole as Ray pulls herself up, watching to make sure she's not gonna slip and fall back in or something.]

Hey, no problem. You hurt or... poisoned, or somethin' weird like that? [Honestly who knows what's down there, she wouldn't be surprised.]

[liveasmyself]

[She drops the bone to look herself over.]

Is poison a big concern here?

[bitch4bitch]

Ehh, not specifically, so much as there's just... a lot of weird crap that happens? So I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaking of which - welcome to this load of bullshit.

[liveasmyself]

Um, thank you?

[That seems like the right response? This woman's speech may be a bit impolite, but she seems honest--which makes her a good source. And Ray knows that she's kind since she took the time to help.]

Weird things in addition to people showing up underground?

[bitch4bitch]

[Erika sure would have something to say about the idea of her being 'kind', and it would probably involve some laughter. But she is, at least, generally honest, and it's only fair that this new girl have some idea of what goes on around here.]

Oh, yeah. Weirdass monsters, days-long dream hallucinations, the sun fuckin' disappearing... It's kind of a lot. Just... y'know, fair warning.

[liveasmyself]

[Monsters she is, unfortunately, used to; still, her heart sinks to hear that this place isn't nearly as idyllic as it looks.]

I'm sorry, the sun..?

[She points up at the sky hesitantly.]

[bitch4bitch]

Yeah.

It came back. It just... died for a little bit there, I guess? But it's fine now.

[She shrugs and makes a face. Sorry, that's just how it be around here.]

[liveasmyself]

It... died...

[She repeats it like she understands, though she clearly doesn't.]

But how did everyone survive something like that?

[bitch4bitch]

Lots of bonfires. Lots of stored-up food, though the sun didn't stay gone long enough for that to be a huge issue.

Honestly, the biggest problem was probably the monsters.

[liveasmyself]

[Monsters. A girl just can't catch a break from them.

Ray's grateful for the information, but that gratitude is certainly tempered by a palpable sense of unease and weariness.]

I'm sorry for saying it, but this place is sounding less and less appealing.

sorry for the long wait there!

[bitch4bitch]

Oh, you absolutely don't need to be sorry, it's pretty much the worst.

[That's not very reassuring, Erika.]

We're tryin' to make it better, anyway... y'know, bit by bit. There's places to stay, we usually got food around at this point... it's progress, anyway. For until we can get out of here.

[Because, like-- they've got to get out of there, right? She can't just stay here forever.]

No worries at all!

[liveasmyself]

[Ray nods along slowly. At least it sounds like things aren't as bad as they could be...]

Is there a way out?

[She's not as hopeful as she thought she'd be--what's waiting for her at home anyway?]

[bitch4bitch]

We're... working on that.

[So, no.]

Been trying to look into solutions where we can, but there's not much so far.

[liveasmyself]

[She nods again, then thinks on it a moment and tries to smile. Be optimistic. Maybe this is an opportunity, in a way, to finally fly away and live somewhere free.]

Well... if we can work towards making this place livable, maybe it doesn't matter.

I don't know much, but I'll do what I can.

[bitch4bitch]

I mean... [Erika shrugs, grimacing.] Whether it matters is kind of gonna be on a case-by-case basis, I'd say.

[Which is really just to say, she wants to get home as soon as possible.]

Either way, any help is gonna be appreciated, I think. 'Least we're making some headway on getting shit sorted out here; there's a few different places to live in, and we've kind of got a restaurant now.

[liveasmyself]

A restaurant? That's impressive. I wouldn't have guessed, just looking around here.

[Then it can't be too bad, right? That's got to take a lot of preparation and resources to set up.]

[bitch4bitch]

Right? I mean, it super does help that we've got this... rabbit deity person helping us out.

[Which is still weird and she's not sure she trusts like that but, y'know, it's fine.]

[liveasmyself]

[The rabbit? That's real? Ray's mouth tightens in concentration for just a moment--and then she accepts that fact easily enough. Sure. At this point, why not? Her school was run over by ghosts and now she's in another world, so... why not?]

So they build things like that too?

[bitch4bitch]

[Yeah, the whole interdimensional travel thing does have the side effect of making things like talking dream rabbit gods seem... a little more feasible in comparison.]

They help with supplies 'n stuff, at least... Honestly, I'm not sure how much of the building was them and how much was just people here getting their shit together and putting it all up.

[liveasmyself]

[Either way, it's still a good sign, right? She's doing her best to be optimistic, mainly because the only other option is losing her mind.]

At least they must be a kind god if they're helping us so much... [She's quiet a moment, then looks back to Erika.] Actually, could you direct me to where that is? I think I'd like to see it.

[And then... she'll have to figure out where the heck she's going to stay and what to do. But she's been following any clue that seems even vaguely important for so long that there's no reason to stop now. And moving keeps her mind off of anything she doesn't want to think about.]