September Intro: The Fields Are Painted Gold

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: SEPTEMBER

Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: September 4th and onward
Where: Primarily Ensō, though Umui is also likely
Warnings: Mark as needed!

The Beach: And the Sun is Coming Through
When you arrive on the archipelago of LifeAftr, it is on the shores of Ensō - turquoise waves dragging through the pale sand of the beach. The breeze carries the tang of salt on the tropical sea spray. The sky overhead is a blue to rival the aquamarine surf. All told, the atmosphere is almost...pleasant. Not far from the cream-colored beach, the jungle beckons.

Above the treetops, however, something seems to be drifting overhead.

Bright spots of color drift on the wind like motes of dust. On further inspection, one might be able to discern what, exactly, is the cause of this lazily wafting, brilliantly colored confetti. They are flower petals, being funneled up into the sky. Petals of every color and shape imaginable, thickening the air with golden currents of pollen, being lifted from one specific point. They are streaming freely from the Storyteller's Temple, as it happens, though this may not be clear to the newly arrived. The Temple has at last begun to shed the floral trappings that have ensnared it since the end of last month, and the breeze carries this out across the ocean skyline.

There's no mistaking it: it is very beautiful. Unless you have allergies.

Inland: The Trees Are Filled With Memories
This influx of flowers on the breeze, aside from being a potential source of unpleasant reminders to those who died choking on said flowers last month, have had additional consequences. The creatures rescued from Ziziphus flourish in such pollen-rich environments, which has led to a fresh budding of their young. Baby mosslings crawl like lumps of lichen over the trunks of trees, and the loud peeping of arboreali chicks can be heard in the branches above. Most of these creatures are not tameable, but some, such as flowccus, can be kept as livestock.

Just take care, when venturing into Ensō's verdant jungle. If Ziziphus's prey animals have begun to spring forth, then its predators have begun to reproduce as well. Young spindlanks and rootwyrms are not nearly as vicious as their adult counterparts, but you may have a bit of trouble getting rid of them without killing them - you did, after all, bring them here to preserve them.

Most notable, however, are the fresh litters of tigerlilies that have begun swarming all over Ensō.


Tigerlilies can be tamed and kept as pets, though despite their fearsome appearance, they not terribly vicious. They subsist in much the same way any other plant would; off of water and sunlight, primarily, though they might also graze like an herbivore from time to time.

If you're interested in keeping one for your own, bear LifeAftr's companion limit in mind - two per character, and no more. The process of trying to tame a tigerlily is not always successful, either. We recommend use of a d10, with the following guidelines:

Rolling a 10: Critical success! This tigerlily will follow you to the ends of the earth.
Rolling 6-9: Taming and training this tigerlily will be like educating a stubborn housecat, but will be nonetheless successful.
Rolling 2-5: Failure. You get sprayed with soporific pollen, which will affect you for several hours.
Rolling a 1: Critical failure. Not only do you get sprayed with soporific pollen, but the tigerlily in question decides that you're their new cat toy. Tigerlilies are not carnivorous, but their teeth and fangs are still very sharp, and not highly pleasant to contend with.

Bear in mind that these are only guidelines; you are free to predetermine successes or failures as you'd like, presuming your character can sustain the companion! Our discord channel has a room for dice-rolls, if that's your speed.

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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.

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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!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[uptightness]

Her helmet remains facing him, scanning, trying to piece together his story. What is the last thing that he remembers? Yet she doesn't ask it of him, at least not yet, trying to figure that out on her own. He isn't overly shocked or surprised to see her, but then again, he wasn't really when she showed up from the dead. She would have hoped... Well, it seems that no matter what, it will always come back to her, that hurdle that he just can't overcome.

"Hello, Director."

Because it is what they have fallen in to, isn't it? She had been angry when she had first found him after searching for so long, angry when she had tracked him down, and then... I wish she could've learned to let things go. For a time, like father, like daughter, driven by that need, pushed on by that urge, but Carolina likes to think that the past wouldn't define her, that she wouldn't keep chasing her own ghosts, that she might, just maybe, learn from her mistakes and not repeat them over and over and over.

"You've just arrived."

More statement of fact than question. There's no doubt that she would have heard of him before, had he been here for some time. As big as this place might technically be with the various places, it's really not that big at all. There's no ships to board to travel to other planets, at least not that she's aware of. And really, she is still trying to figure out what exactly this is, not exactly taking it at face value.

[determinist]

"That's correct."

He glances out at the sea. There don't seem to be any more boats arriving, not just now, anyway. He has no reason to keep watch, then. He looks back at his daughter.

"Is that not true of yourself?" he adds.

Washington seemed assured that this was not the afterlife, and that he had never died, himself. Leonard wonders how long Washington has been here, how much this place messes with the typical measures of time and space. It doesn't make sense at all for Washington and Carolina to be here ahead of him, not at all. But Washington seemed well-acquainted with the place and with his own place in it.

For another matter, Washington had never mentioned Carolina's presence here. Perhaps she had just arrived here, same as him. Somehow he doubts it, though. Not with the way she's behaving.

[uptightness]

"No." Supplying that for a moment. In some ways it is easier to talk to a complete stranger for Carolina than it is to talk to him. That familial bond has never been something that has been that strong. If anything, looking back she knows that what she had had with the other Freelancers, and what she has with the simulation troopers is stronger, more akin to what one might expect.

It's more awkward and stilted, like a long lost acquaintance which one parted on bad terms. It hadn't been the best of terms, but she had kissed him on his forehead and left him with Wash's gun. Not the ending that she had gone there looking for, but Carolina knows that sometimes life takes those unexpected twists and turns.

"It's- About a month." She can admit that. There's nothing wrong with that. She's not going to bring up Wash, let alone CT, although she'll certainly go and give them a head's up. Her meeting her father, the Director, is one thing, yet the two of them...?

[determinist]

"Interesting," he says. "You might not be surprised to know, then, that I met Washington in the woods, back there," he adds, gesturing toward the trees. "He was quite insistent that I not be allowed to have any weapons. Apparently his claim is that this is not the afterlife, however it appears to me, and that I shouldn't be allowed to harm myself."

He's staring Carolina down now, his arms crossed across his chest, looking rather put out by this information being confirmed in this small way. If Carolina had arrived before him, then there's no way there's any correlation to the timing of things back in their universe—she was most definitely not dead a month before him.

"He was quite angry to have found me here," Leonard finishes. "I suppose it's a sentiment many would share, should they happen to be here. Would you be willing to let me know if there are any, besides him and yourself?"

For all he knows all the Freelancers have arrived here before him, and he's not sure they'd all be as kind as Washington had proved to be, no matter how cold his tone and behavior.

[uptightness]

No, she isn't surprised by that information at all, given that she knows that Wash is here already. Wash and CT. She's not exactly willing to share that yet, although Carolina doubts that The Director could do anything. Unlike the female side of the family, he's never been much of a fighter. "I'm fully aware Wash is here, and can confirm this isn't the afterlife."

It's been close many times, but Carolina has escaped death time and time again. How and why, she doesn't know. Some days she even questions is. The cliff had been her quick thinking with her grappling hook. The drones of Texas could well have ended her, but Wash and the Sims had come to help. Even on Chorus... Yet she still lives, still breathes, still wakes every day and puts one foot in front of the other.

The helmet does hide her own reactions, that slight wry smirk of her lips as his arms cross over his chest. She can't say that she exactly disagrees with Wash, as he's more likely to hurt himself probably, but what weapons had he come with...? She had gone there, intending to kill him, but when she had found him... York's words, Epsilon's words. They had both turned around in her head. That anger, while still there, had also lessened. "At the moment, to my knowledge, there is one other."

cw mention of suicide

[determinist]

"Somehow I had a feeling," he says. "As for the other...I don't understand how I've come to be here alive if it's not." He doesn't intend to go into the grisly details, but regardless, he knows his killing shot was good.

The two of them, perhaps all three, are equipped with armor, where he has none. They have weapons, where he has none. It seems they're at a large advantage over him.

"Regardless," he continues, "I do want you to know, I don't intend to burden you with my presence if you would prefer not to be."

[uptightness]

It isn't that Carolina hadn't had missions with Wash before. She had. It's only after that she had gotten to know him better. They'd both fallen back in to that routine that they'd had at Freelancer, until she'd pushed too far and he'd pushed right back. It hadn't stopped him at the end of the day from coming to help her, from all of them coming to help her, and she could say that there is that protective streak in her that covers him. CT as well, if to a different manner.

"You're not the first." Although again, she's not going to say that CT is here, that time lines don't match up to any sense of the word. She... had found a small measure of peace, in her own way, although she's still got her own issues. They don't just vanish over-night. Carolina doesn't need him to explain though. She'd left him with a gun.

There is that sharpness to her posture as her helmet centres on him again. Even with CT here, it hadn't crossed her mind that he would show up, and at the end of the day, she is conflicted. There's no desire to run over and call him daddy like she had, many, many years ago, but the scene that she had found, that video over and over and over, by himself, the drones... "We're not always given the luxury of choosing here, Director."

[determinist]

"Indeed?" he replies. "Well. You would know better than me. I'll take your word on it."

[uptightness]

At the end of the day it is something that he is going to have to figure out for himself. He may well have used that gun that had been left behind for him, but there is no evidence of it here. Rather, he's just as she recalls. "I suggest finding some place to live, Director. There's several options available."

[determinist]

"I will look for a place," he says. He turns slightly, looking out toward the water for a moment.

No one new is arriving now. He knows he's not going to find her. Not right now, anyway.

He turns back to Carolina.

"I can't give up hope," he adds. "You'll have to forgive me for that. If you can."

[uptightness]

That tightness in her jaw, not that he can see it, although he may well notice the subtle shift in her posture. There are those that Carolina does miss, chances that she knows that she won't have again. Watching the Freelancers die again in the temple had driven that home. Yet... She's not going to remain fixated on them, because he is the perfect example of what happens.

Why waste the words? It would be akin to talking to a brick wall. She's done chasing, she's done trying. He's a horse that you can lead to water, but that you can't make it drink. "Just remember, this isn't the Project, Director."