lifeaftr | December Intro: Pressure Building

INTRO LOG: DECEMBER

Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: December 4th and onward
Where: All over Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

It begins on a mild autumn day, one where the breeze is gentle and the sky a deep, cloudless blue. Ensō is quiet as the adventurers that call it (if only temporarily) home begin to awaken and go about their daily business- for those who have been here long enough, this may consist of searching for those new arrivals, undoubtedly lost and likely confused. It is a normal day on Ensō. Then the water starts to rise.

Northern Beachfront: Let Me Get Off the Ground
For newcomers waking on the shoreline and those who have come to greet them, the rapid swelling of the ocean's surface will be immediately noticeable. Just a few, short miles from the shore, the water continues bulging upwards to terrifying heights, obscuring the sun and throwing warped shadows over the majority of Ensō's northern landscape. It towers there, wobbling, inexplicably retaining its shape even as it ripples, flowing, and sends great streams of saltwater streaming over the ocean's surface.

Though the sun is barely capable of piercing the immense mass, those with a keen eye will see...something moving within, coiled far above sea level. Some dark mass, too distorted by the water and the lack of light to solidify into any easily recognizable shape, nonetheless makes its presence felt regardless. All nearby will find themselves stricken with a growing sense of being watched by a gaze that pierces flesh and bone…one that is none too appreciative of what it sees.

Retaliation to this apparent threat is both vicious and immediate. Bursting from the trees and whipping through the air within a tornado of motion, thousands, then tens of thousands of ink-stained pages whip out from Ensō's jungle and across open water like a flock of ferocious birds, striking at the liquid mountain with unceasing fervor.

Now may not be the best time to gawk, adventurers. With this attack, the raised water will begin to collapse - and the giant waves resulting from the sudden upset will bear no mercy for anyone swept off their feet in the churning swells.

Storyteller's Temple and the Rest of Ensō: I See Your Corruption
Those seeking shelter and answers will find them limited in supply, if not entirely absent. For, you see, the mana pools on Ensō have ceased functioning, leaving characters stranded wherever they may be at the time the assault begins.

No safety can be found within the temple walls this day, with more and more black pages erupting from every door and window. Attempts to approach and even push through won't be harmful, or at least not intentionally - rather, the pages will force back anyone who attempts to come between them and their current objective. Those who may not get the message the first time may just find themselves flying quite a ways away.

The above will quickly become the least of anyone’s worries.

Those who remember the rebirth of the sun back in January will not doubt recall the creatures of the night faced during those darkest hours. As the waters around Ensō continue to churn in response to the offshore assault, large waves act as ferries for those precise beasts, clambering onto the shore in droves. Though the sun is obscured in many spaces, these shadowy creatures will always make for the treelines during daylight hours, seemingly sluggish at best under natural lighting.

Unfortunately, the Storyteller will be occupied for quite some time - and once night falls, those deadly beings will be on the hunt.

For the duration of the assault, the islets will remain relatively safe during daylight hours, so long as your character is capable of accessing a boat to travel there. Once night falls, however, they will be as dangerous as the mainland.

Both the shadowy creatures and the risen water will retreat on the morning of December 10th, leaving Ensō silent once more. The hovering pages, however, will continue circling the coastline for some time like great papery seabirds.

The doors to the Storyteller’s temple shall remain closed.

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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Mm... Actually, yes, it's just going to be like this.]

You really are making several assumptions about where "here" is, aren't you...? I don't claim to understand it either, granted, but I can assure you that the Enduring Shrine performed admirably.

[It's spoken easily enough; after all, it absolutely did do that, for a given degree of 'admirable.']

The children were a nuisance; they delayed my analysis of the formula required to operate it, which was admittedly obnoxious. But I was certainly more successful than you were in fending them off. And in the end, Zaude did precisely what it was designed to do.

I woke up here shortly after everything was completed. I couldn't tell you why, or what happened beyond that. It simply is what it is, for now.

[That is...technically true? All of that is very technically true.]

That certainly is a nice thought, isn't it? But you're going to have to try a bit harder if you want me to believe something like that.

If everything really did go according to plan, then I can't imagine you'd be willing to waste time chatting with me here, ja? You have a world to go back to look after - and if everything went well, leaving it now really would be terrible, wouldn't it?

Did Zaude itself kill you?

[He is making so many assumptions here, but it's not like he really has anything to lose at this point.]

[Yeager, do you really think he would have been held in such high regard if he couldn't play the PR game...]

While it's true that I dislike wasting time on needless things, you heard the entity as well as I did. We can't leave this place, and assuming it can be trusted, Terca Lumireis is exactly as it was left at the time of my departure. The world will be there when I return - and besides, we have bigger concerns at the immediate moment.

I'm aware that all of this hinges on trusting an unknown entity that doesn't seem to comprehend much more than we do at the moment about the situation. I'll be the first to admit that I don't like that. But at the moment, I haven't much of a choice.

I can assure you, I was alive after Zaude's activation.

[...in his defense he has spent the last ten years dealing with Don Whitehorse...]

Oh, of course.

[He certainly could try to keep pushing to see if he can get anything else out of Alexei, but honestly he just doesn't care enough for it. It really doesn't matter, just like everything else here.]

My apologies for doubting you! Surely you can see where I'd be confused, given the general state of things here! I won't make that mistake again, milord~!

[so it's back to This, then.]

[That's...a fair point, actually. Also: don't ever remind him of Don Whitehorse. He will admit it to no one, but those peace negotiations were the worst few days of his life on the interpersonal front. He's had worse days overall, but they usually weren't that...socially harrowing.]

See to it that you don't; providing constant corrections would be tiresome.

[He doesn't seem bothered, though.

...We're both doing great on the well-adjusted front, aren't we.]

[He would have paid so much just to be able to witness that...]

Of course, of course~

I suppose I should ask... Would you prefer for me to come with you for now?

[What Alexei said earlier is still irritating him in a way most things don't, but it's not like he's really opposed to sticking with the one familiar person here for the time being.]

[...On the one hand, he doesn't want that, for a multitude of reasons. On the other, he absolutely doesn't not want that, either. It's something he doesn't know how to explain if asked, and he's going to spend the next short while dealing with that whole notion by aggressively not dealing with it at all, probably.]

...Implying that you would do so if I preferred it?

[In other words, this shitshow of a decision is not going to be solely on him, you absolute douchebag.]

That doesn't really answer the question, milord...

[Yes it is, it's all up to you!!!]

Have you never heard of basic negotiation skills? You don't enter into a diplomatic situation without a good idea of the outcome.

As it stands, I don't see what you're after by asking me such a thing in the first place.

[Surely you would want to be just about anywhere else?]

Who says I'm after anything? I thought I'd be kind enough to offer you a choice, I didn't think you'd be so stubborn about making such a decision...

...Yeager, I don't know when you think I was born, but it certainly wasn't yesterday.

Stay near me if you like. It isn't an order.

[...Why the hell isn't it an order? It's not as though he has to follow orders here, but something about this really isn't sitting right with him.

Not that there's any trace of that in his expression and words, but he Doesn't Like It.]

I don't have anywhere else to be right now, so I suppose~!

[It isn't an order because congratulations, jackass. You are now the one responsible for this decision.]

Just try to be useful in some way, then.

Who knows, maybe I'll try~!

[But probably not, because that involves actually caring about anything for more than five seconds at a time and he's not having a good track record with that today.]

[Unless he's calling you worthless, apparently.]

Good to know.

December Intro: Pressure Building

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