October Intro: I Think We Should Run

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: OCTOBER

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

Nuidan: Checking that the Coast is Clear
This time around, newest arrivals to the archipelago of LifeAftr will open their eyes to the skies overlooking the relatively recent island of Nuidan. Namely, they'll be waking in the northern quadrant of said island, the region perpetually locked in the season of spring. This means rich fields of gold and green and buff-colored grass and skies swollen with unshed rainclouds. The scent of turned soil and petrichor mingles with the faint, earthy scent of manure.

It's not an unpleasant way to wake. There are doubtless worse places to rouse yourself. But the cloud of dust clotting up the horizon soon suggests that there might be a bit more to the circumstances of your arrival than some nice weather.

And, unfortunately, that's exactly the case. There's a herd of something charging directly for you, and nothing short of a natural disaster is going to sway them from their course. A thick-packed herd of scaly aptonoth have been spooked, startled, or otherwise galvanized into a panicked stampede across the northern reaches of Nuidan.

Quadrupedal, herbivorous, and scaly, aptonoths resemble dinosaurs in appearance more than they do so in their generally placid nature. They are far more akin to cows in temperament, even if their skin is a good deal more leathery. Even the broad spikes at the ends of their tail or the heavy horns atop their heads aren't terribly dangerous unless the entire herd feels threatened. While aptonoths are typically easily tamed, in this case they are far from amenable to conceding to anyone's interference.

It's probably best to try and get out of their way. Fast.

Ensō: 'Cause They're Already Ghosts
Things are quieter on LifeAftr's mainland. They might seem a little...eerily so, in fact. Today officially marks the day that the Storyteller makes their departure, and seeks out new islands for you intrepid explorers to uncover. The difference that their absence creates is small, at first, and most prominently felt on Ensō itself.

The temple is the most obvious thing. It simply looks...defeated and empty, as hollow and unoccupied as it currently is. That aura of proud mystery is absent, though the Chamber of Glyphs at least remains as it was. But anyone who comes looking for the Storyteller themself at this time will find no one waiting for them. No flower-touched animal, no old, dusty tome. You're currently on your own.

Or...maybe not? The Storyteller was courteous enough to issue a warning last month about the nature of the dream-island of Mu. The effects of that island will start to make themselves evident in small, simple ways: namely, in the way you're going to start seeing things.

Nothing serious, of course. Just...flickers of movement in the corners of your vision. Something about your surroundings just being so slightly off. The color of that rock - it's always been that way, hasn't it? Or was it only always that way five minutes ago? While these blips and hitches in reality are decidedly non-specific, they can be unsettling for those who can't adjust for a bit of strangeness.

The source of these odd quirks in the fabric of reality is easily explained by the presence of clockroaches, one of Mu's wily dream-creatures. You'd be hard-pressed to catch a glimpse of any of them directly; they specialize in the ethereal and the ephemeral, and seldom reveal themselves to anyone if they can help it. But you might, if you're very attentive or very lucky, see some indistinct, silver-misted blur disappearing behind the trunk of a tree in a blink-swift ghost of motion.

But they are, in essence, harmless. At least...for the moment.

As of October 4th, the Storyteller will be unavailable for both IC Contact threads and Item Requests. If you need anything vital backdated, just let us know!

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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

[ofsterlingstuff]

[Hero opens the door as she reaches it, and slams it shut behind Tim once he's inside.

And then she flops down on the floor, because while she isn't dying like he seems to be, she's definitely tired. After a second or two, she asks:]

You okay?

[postictal]

[Tim has to lean up against the wall while he catches his breath. There's a stitch at his side and - yeah, he hasn't done enough running in recent history, really. Plenty of heavy lifting, sure, but the end result isn't the same.]

Yeah...s...just gimme a sec.

[To, uh, catch his lungs.]

You?

[ofsterlingstuff]

Uh-huh.

[She'll just lay on the floor for a lil bit longer, though. She can see some of the machinery of the windmill working up above them. It's neat.]

What's your name?

[postictal]

Tim.

[Now that he's not wheezing his fucking lungs out - ]

What about you? You gotta name?

[ofsterlingstuff]

Um.

[...has she got a name anymore?

She doesn't want to think about it like that. Not here, not with a grown-up she doesn't even know. But she doesn't want to say that it is her name, like she never had a real one that was just her. So:]

I'm called Hero. [She probably could've said that in a way that sounded really cool, but she doesn't have it together enough yet.]

[postictal]

[She's called "Hero," but she doesn't say that's her name. That distinction strikes him, mostly because he spent the better part of his first year calling two kids "Kidwun" and "Kittu" and generally playing along with a charade that ultimately didn't matter.]

You're called that?

[...]

You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Just...let me know if you want me to call you anything else.

[ofsterlingstuff]

Hero's okay.

[It's not that she doesn't want to. She feels a little bad that he thinks so, but she's not sure how to clear it up without telling him the whole thing.]

Nice to meet you.

[postictal]

[It's clear there's a hell of a lot more to it than that. Unfortunately, he has no idea how to broach the topic cleanly. Or at all.]

You too. Sorry it had to happen - like this. ["This" being the running and hiding from a massive stampede, because that's not up there on his list of personal best introductions.]

[ofsterlingstuff]

[Hero just kinda shrugs.]

I've had to run away a lot today.

[postictal]

Were you in trouble, where you came from?

[In trouble, because she seems pretty...young. Young, but no less determined. That's a human thing, they say. Maybe it has more to do with being a kid.]

[ofsterlingstuff]

My friend was.

[That's something she'll call RGB, after everything in the market. After he hugged her in the tunnel.]

But we got away, so he's okay now. [.....] The rabbit in my dream said that time would stop back there, while I was here?

[She's not sure if that went for everyone. After all, what they said was that a story couldn't go on without its Hero.]

[postictal]

Yeah. That was the Storyteller. You're not missing anything while you're here.

[Her friend. Well, unless she's very lucky, said friend won't be around here to help.]

Everything's just on hold for a bit.

[ofsterlingstuff]

That's good. He'd be really upset.

[She's sure that he would. Though, it does mean she definitely has to go back there, and not anywhere else. It wouldn't be fair to leave the whole world frozen just so she could escape, right?]

How long have people been getting stuck here for?

[postictal]

[Tim sighs, adjusting his slouch against the wall. Resists the urge to dig through his pockets for a smoke. Not in front of the kid, man. Come on.]

I've been here since...last August. So...well over a year at this point.

[ofsterlingstuff]

That's a really long time.

[ugggggggGGGGGGHHHHHH]

So no one knows what we have to do to go back?

[postictal]

No. Some people...disappear sometimes. I think they go home, but the Storyteller doesn't seem to know why it's some people and not everyone else.

[Uncertainty. Always a nice thing to thrust upon a little kid. Better it be him than anyone else, right?]

[ofsterlingstuff]

Oh. [Hero thunks a boot against the wall.] Okay.

[It's not like she's had a lot of control over things lately anyway.]

Is there somewhere we all stay until then?

[postictal]

There are houses. Places people sleep.

[...god he just hopes she's not going to be alone in that.]

You...need help finding them?

[ofsterlingstuff]

Yeah. I guess so.

[She's not excited about it, but...gonna need something. At least having a house again seems like it might be nice.]

We can wait a little if that's better though. [Since like, outside is a whole thing right now.]

[postictal]

Yeah. That's...we're probably gonna have to wait.

[Until the sound of the aptonoth pounding over the earth fades. Who knows how long that's going to take? Tim shrugs his pack off his shoulders, lets it slide to the ground.]

You get one of these?

[ofsterlingstuff]

[!]

Oh yeah!

[The knapsack's strapped tight to her back, and she swings it off and around. It definitely says "HERO" on it, at least. She's digging through it now.]

There's some soap and a hammer, and....oh. It's a gun. [YEP THAT SURE IS A GUN]

[postictal]

...okay, well that's...great.

[Of course. Of course the kid gets the gun. It's not a coconut gun, but...christ, as if that's something they need.]

Looks like a flare gun or something. Does it say what it does on it anywhere?

[ofsterlingstuff]

Uh...no?

[She's handling it very carefully, at least, if not...in an actual way you should be handling a gun.]

It looks old.

[postictal]

Kinda does, yeah.

[Oh boy.]

Some people show up with...weird stuff in their packs. Once people got these guns that shot coconuts, but it was pretty obvious that they actually shot coconuts.

Careful with it. We don't know what it does.

[ofsterlingstuff]

[Hero just sort of...gingerly sets it down next to her. It seems kinda dangerous to carry it loose in her bag? She'll figure something out when they go again.]

What's this stuff? [It's a tinder kit and a piece of flint.]