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 nods; that's good enough.]

Where I was before this, the sun just went up and down whenever. We had to stop to sleep a lot.

[postictal]

"We"?

[She was traveling in a group, then. Or, at least...with someone else.]

[ofsterlingstuff]

Me and RGB. He's - my friend.

[Yeah? Yeah.]

He's a monster. He looks like a person in a suit, but he doesn't have any body, and his head's a telly. [He sort of mimes a box-set head.] He's not around here, right? I think I would've heard him yelling if he were out there.

[postictal]

[Tim very quickly reached the point where "monster" stopped being a shocking descriptor. It doesn't even sound that out of place compared to the monsters he's familiar with. So it's with complete seriousness that he answers, sucking in the wall of his cheek thoughtfully.]

Haven't seen anyone with a TV head, no. But I'll...keep an eye out now, I guess.

[ofsterlingstuff]

Thanks. He'd be really freaked out if he ended up here without me - and he's scared of water. He'd hate being on an island.

[postictal]

[If his head's a literal television, that actually...makes sense. Christ.]

You seem to be doing pretty okay without him, at least.

[ofsterlingstuff]

...yeah. He's...I dunno.

["Not exactly a great or even middling guardian" is probably what she's trying for, but what she settles on is:]

It's not like he'd know what to do here, either. He's not from here.

[postictal]

Was he...looking after you?

[She is pretty young to be on her own. Not that youth is necessarily an indication of capability - he'd know as well as anyone that kids can be the most competent sorts in a crisis - but it raises questions.]

[ofsterlingstuff]

I think we were looking after each other. If we weren't before, we are now.

[Oh, she probably shouldn't start telling someone about the whole thing that happened in the market. That made RGB look really bad. Because...it was really bad, but she doesn't want a whole other group of people trying to kill him if he ever shows up.]

[postictal]

[Were, he almost says. And...doesn't. That just seems cruel, given everything.]

Well, you're not alone here either. We all look after each other.

[ofsterlingstuff]

...that's good. I guess it might be nice to stay in one place for a while.

[And she doesn't really know how to camp by herself. There probably aren't even plants and animals she knows here.]

[postictal]

You wanna see if we can head to some of those houses now? It sounds like things've quieted down out there.

[Either the stampede's over or it's moved on, but either way, it's a finite sort of disaster that means they can push on past it.]

[ofsterlingstuff]

Okay! [She'll start packing up, then.] Is it very far?

[postictal]

...kind of?

[That's not the best way to put it.]

There's these things called mana pools - you hear about those in your dream, before you got here?

[ofsterlingstuff]

Oh! They're like, magic teleport things?

[postictal]

Pretty much, yeah. They cut down on walking time.

[That's one way of putting it. But it's not wrong.]

They're all over the islands. There's only one on this one, so we'll have to go a ways before we can reach it to use the others.

[ofsterlingstuff]

Is it cool when you go through?

[are there lasers]

[postictal]

Uh.

[Good...good question? He's gotten so desensitized to it by now that he honestly isn't sure how to answer that one. Nudging the door open and peering out into the empty field buys him time to come up with a fair response. Unfortunately, that response is probably the least exciting possible.]

You just disappear and reappear somewhere else. I guess that's pretty cool.

[ofsterlingstuff]

I guess.

[The thing with the smoke stairs was probably cooler. Hero finishes packing up - which wouldn't have taken that long, except she seemed to go back and forth about the safest way to store her gun a few times - and goes over to look out the door too.]

What were those dinosaurs, anyway? Were they really dinosaurs?

[postictal]

They're pretty harmless, unless they're stampeding.

[Just a few weeks ago a group managed to corral and keep them all in one place, so this is probably another herd. Either that, or they didn't do a good enough job in corraling as they thought.]

I don't know the name for them, but they're kinda like...this place's answer to bulls or horses.

[ofsterlingstuff]

You can ride them?

[postictal]

[oh my god that's definitely not what he meant but now that he thinks about it...is that actually possible?]

[He grimaces.]

I wouldn't try it.

[ofsterlingstuff]

But you said they're like horses!

[What else do you do with horses? Also riding a dinosaur sounds awesome, so]

[postictal]

More like they...they stampede like horses. Wild horses. Don't...try and ride them.

[ofsterlingstuff]

O-kaaaaay.

[she waaaaaants to though]

What other animals live here?