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]

[She pauses and then responds, politely as she can:]

...Two's not very many.

["Currently," Ray.]

[hyperlit]

they come and go

[The Drifter has to take a moment to count through them, one by one. Ensō, Chol, Monsun, Ai'tuoh, Ziziphus, Umui...they aren't counting Mu, though they probably should.]

have been 6

[liveasmyself]

They can leave? Do they get swallowed by the ocean?

[Or that black hole, maybe? What about the one they're on right now?]

[hyperlit]

god takes them away

[The Drifter seems, again, utterly unconcerned with this information. It's nbd. Sometimes islands appear and sometimes they disappear. It's just a thing that Happens sometimes.]

warns when new ones appear
when old ones go

[liveasmyself]

At least we don't have to worry about being whisked away with them without warning... This god must be very powerful to do something like that.

[The storyteller hadn't looked strong or mighty in that dream, but appearances can be deceiving. It's a good thing that she learns this now before there's any trouble.]

[hyperlit]

they are

[Yeah. That's...yeah. That's their only contribution to that particular line of thought. This god is indeed very powerful, and that isn't terribly shocking to them. Most gods are, in their experience.]

will survive on your own
?

[Ordinarily they wouldn't check, but...this is a child they're talking to. They've grown a little more protective, shall we say, of some of their smaller charges.]

[liveasmyself]

[Ray hesitates, then smiles with a confidence that she's trying very hard to feel. She told Wei she was capable, and she meant it. This place may be even stranger than an abandoned school, but she's the same, and she hopes that she may be able to endure all the same.]

I'm not helpless. This is all new to me, but I'm adaptable.

...But if you're not using that ax, is there any chance I could please keep it?

[She might be more liable to hurt herself with it than anything else, but she also doesn't think it'd be wise to turn down a tool.]

[hyperlit]

yes

[The Drifter already has weapons, after all; they are not using the axe. Perhaps, if they were a responsible adult, they would not be concerned about handing rusted, sharp objects to small children who do not seem to know how to use them.]

[But they're not, so they decide that it is a good and responsible thing to hand a child some means of self-defense.]

keep it

[liveasmyself]

[Drifter for responsible adult of the year! Ray nods her gratitude, holding on tightly to her handy sharp object.]

Thank you, I'm in your debt. I'll... I'll think of a way to help you too in return, in the future.

[hyperlit]

[At last! Someone who understands the Drifter's compulsions for debt and exchange. They blink once, their polished-obsidian eyes glittering faintly in the island's warm sunlight.]

do not worry

[...but they also do not apply their standards to anyone else, as a rule.]

protect yourself
payment enough

[liveasmyself]

[Ray blinks a few times--that's a very generous remark coming from someone she just met. Someone who's already helped her a few times in their short acquaintanceship, too.]

If you're sure about that... [She smiles.] That's very nice of you.

[hyperlit]

not using it
it will serve you better

[It's simple logistics and practicality, and...and they have grown to care, in some ways, about what happens to the younger souls on these islands. They do not deserve to live in fear.]

[liveasmyself]

I hope... I'll do my best with it.

[And she will find a way to pay Drifter back beyond simply staying alive--she'll just have to figure out what exactly that is.]

[ooc: Drifter is precious. <3 Do you think this is a good place to wrap up? Thank you for the thread!]

i'm good to wrap here! thank u c:

[hyperlit]

[The Drifter inclines their head in response. They are not overly inclined to venture an appropriate farewell; they simply start to walk, taking their leave apropos of nothing. As far as they are concerned, the conversation has ended.]