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

Yeah... I don't know where Aster is, or Nezumi or Ceej. [There are others. Dagger for one. It wasn't like he was the type to stick with others or seek help. He had seen Aster that morning, but he had no idea if she was on Enso or elsewhere. Nezumi... Could be anywhere and Ceej was likely at home, at least his tree house was high above water level.]

Do you have your rock? You can use mine if you don't.

I have it.

[All the people he needs to keep tabs on are those that can take care of themselves. Usually, anyway. This would be a situation in which he doubts he needs to worry.]

I'm not worried yet.

Good. I'm not too worried. Well... [Maybe about Ceej...] My friends are pretty good at surviving. Better than me for the most part.

Maybe you should look into fixing that.

[It's not particularly judgmental. It's offhand and conversational, and if the kid dies then it's not likely to be lasting, because nothing here is. He's probably better off not having quite so cavalier an attitude toward death.]

[A pity he acquired it a long time ago.]

I'm better than I used to be. I've only died once since I arrived here. [He sounds actually proud of that. Though he still feels bad about breaking his promise to Aster, there had been plenty other things that could have killed him and he had survived.] But you can never stop training.

Oh, only once, huh? [A bit more bladed than is reasonable. Or necessary. He talks about dying the same way a soldier talks about a trip tomedical. Only once.]

[That should bother him. Does it bother him?]

[He can't say.]

Trying to die never is a good place to start.

I guess. [He shrugged. It was a little too late for never. He is trying though. No longer throws himself into danger for little reason, is much better at moving and fighting rather than freezing and panicking.

The flowers had been cheating, fighting something that used his very emotions to kill him was beyond anything he knew how to deal with.]

It's a good aim.

[Multiple deaths are more likely and more common than one should think. Temporal distortion units tend to have that effect, as do multiple iterations of the same person transposed across biology and technology.]

Can you shoot a gun? [It comes out perfectly conversational, though the trajectory of how he got from one topic to the next might not be immediately obvious.]

Yes... [It hadn't been all that long since he had seen himself at the story telling, shooting down the enemies who had dared hurt Nezumi but that was his future... A future that might not even happen.

He had stolen Elena's gun once. Furious at Ganondorf for hurting Reno and Xion. Used all the bullets against a creature who could not be harmed by normal weapons. Elena had been furious but she had also taught him how to use it properly.] I know how. I don't have a gun though.

[Wash unclips his sidearm from the magstrip at his thigh and holds it up.]

How well can you fire a gun?

I can shoot accurately. I haven't had an awful lot of practice, bullets weren't exactly something we had to spare... I had a very good teacher though, she didn't accept anything but success.

[Don't try just do it had been a phrase of encouragement from Reno, from Elena it had been more of a threat.]

[Wash sighs, and holds the gun out, handle first.]

Don't make me regret this. Only shoot if you know you have to. If anything comes at us, we're going to need eyes on our six.

[Given the intensity of the glower from the wobbling tower of water just off the coast, anticipating that kind of thing seems pretty fucking vital. In his opinion.]

I won't, you won't. [He takes the gun with a grim nod. He wouldn't shoot unless he knew there was a definite threat but being armed against the threat of the unknown made him feel a little bit better.

Though it probably shouldn't. Shion wasn't convinced this was a threat they could shoot. But he felt less helpless at least. He scans the horizon, keeping his eye out. Wash trusted him to watch his back, he wouldn't let him down.]

You've got twelve rounds to that mag. [So make every shot count, is his unspoken order. The ground starts to incline upward more steeply, the jungle greenery fading into the crags of the mountain the further up they go.]

Let me know if you run dry.

I will. [Another nod, acknowledging the spoken and unspoken order. He would only shoot when necessary and he would make sure to hit.

Hopefully the need to fight would be minimal though with the water towering up into the sky it was a lot darker than it usually would, shadows making this seem more frightening that it already was.

He kept walking, kept his eyes on their surroundings and made sure Cobweb was keeping up.

December Intro: Pressure Building

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