January Intro: It Grips Me

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: JANUARY

Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: January 5th and onward
Where: All over Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Shores of Ensō: The Sun's a Harsh Reminder Why
As dawn arrives - and with it, new adventurers to Ensō's shores. It appears the Storyteller is not about to allow a repeat of last month. The ever watchful pages that have guarded the shorelines the month prior now begin to move closer inland, circling the landscape in closing, careful arcs. To the particularly astute, their purpose may quickly become clear. Anything foreign to Ensō's natural ecosystem will be met initially with wary hovering, ruffled pages flocking to nearby trees and wheeling overhead. Now and again, a particularly brave little page will swoop down to tap against the top of an unsuspecting entity.

Foreign entities, in this instance, just so happen to include...well, all of you. These partially sentient notes can be found flitting across the entirety of Ensō and the neighboring housing islets, intent on surveying every little nook and cranny of the tropical landscape. While they may little more than a vague irritant, their attitude towards a person they’re surveying can absolutely get worse, depending on the response they receive. Though responses may vary (and creativity, encouraged), the pages are looking for indications of anything that is not only out of the ordinary, but also that which is acting suspicious. Unfortunately, they're not quite experienced in determining what does and does not count as a genuine threat, and thus they might very well interpret even the smallest signs of surprise, anxiety, and (justified) irritation as signs of hostility.

Unfortunately, their response to this is likely to be just as unpleasant as it is abrupt. Those of you who protest a little too vigorously may find yourselves abruptly doused with a viscous black ink - a marker to return and inspect you again in future. Where more aggressive behavior is…noted, you may very well find yourself swept up in a tornado of angry paperwork, only to be abruptly (and not at all comfortably) deposited at the Storyteller's temple. A very weary Storyteller will do their best to apologize as they slowly smooth out the kinks in this new security system.

But surely you agree, dear adventurer, that this sort of security system is indeed necessary.

Ensō, Inland: Who Knows Where Our Limits Lie
Unsuspecting adventurers aren't the only creatures the pages seem intent on harassing, it seems. Across Ensō, the activity of the native fauna will become much more apparent as creatures are driven from their usual haunts by invading paper. From the smallest of snaplings to herds of cariborn, it will take some time for the wildlife to settle down as many disturbed creatures will find themselves displaced miles away from their natural homes, seemingly at random. Unfortunately, this also includes the creatures most would prefer not to have on the move. For the unappraised, Ensō happens to play host to a particularly horrifying brand of wildlife known only as the fustercluck: a large swath of appropriated limbs with katamari-like qualities, if katamaris were more well known for digesting the majority of their victims and using what little remained (usually the hands and feet) to propel themselves towards their next meal.

Despite Ensō being home to two such creatures, very little has been discovered about them, aside from how unfortunately indestructible they seem to be. Magic, guns, bombs - name your poison, and a fustercluck will most certainly be impervious to it, including poison itself. Should you be unlucky enough to wander into the path of a fustercluck, your best option is to run - or lend the fustercluck a hand.

And another hand. And your entire body, since you offered so nicely.

The fusterclucks have a more directed path than most creatures - they can be found moving up and down the rows of G and H until January 10th, when they appear to settle down...unless they're diverted elsewhere first.

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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

[prettypurpleparlor]

Well, I live in hope.

[The verbal equivalent of a shrug.]

Ideally, that's all we'll need to do... But if it starts moving too close to the building, then we're going to need another plan in a hurry. Which, unfortunately, brings us full-circle to having no idea what to do with it.

[postictal]

So far baiting it away is still the only option that's liable to have any chance of working.

[It's their only option, period.]

We could light some torches, see if the thing doesn't like fire, but I'm not optimistic.

[prettypurpleparlor]

...Hm.

[Muffet sounds as though an idea just occurred to her.]

I wonder if it's attracted to noise at all? That could be a way to lure it in one direction or another without needing to get too close.

[postictal]

[He doesn't know enough about the fustercluck to know whether or not it's a good idea. At worst, they attract yet more unwanted attention. If that happens, they can just use that to bait the fustercluck instead.]

We might as well try it. It's gotta have a few ears in there somewhere, right?

[prettypurpleparlor]

Assuming it hasn't digested them yet...

[A thoughtful pause.]

You know, now that I come to think of it, I can't recall seeing any eyes or ears anywhere in that mass- or anything that wasn't some sort of limb. Can you?

[Like, she's pretty sure there weren't any, but she's also willing to believe that she missed some by virtue of not wanting to check over the fustercluck too closely.]

[postictal]

I've never gotten a real good look at it, but I'd believe you. Doesn't look like it, uh - wants much else.

[Just getting bigger and using what it "eats," for lack of a better term, to keep moving it forward. Yeah, that sounds about right. He'd put it down to a single-minded predatory instinct: consume and move on. Reproduction, thank god, doesn't seem to be part of that.]

It doesn't seem that smart, at least. We can use that.

[prettypurpleparlor]

Thankfully, yes. ...Of course, there is the question of just how smart it isn't. Can we keep using the same trick on it, if it works once? And if not, how many times can we keep doing it before it learns?

[The fustercluck shifts slightly as it continues its' apparently careless travels, and Muffet's eyes narrow as she tracks its' movements.]

[postictal]

What I'm hearing here is that we should probably just take care of it now, then, before it has the chance to "learn" anything.

[Too bad he only knows how to set things on fire. Too bad he doesn't know how to do anything except recover from more shit than should be feasible. Too bad he - ]

[Too bad.]

[He stops thinking about it.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

If I had that power, I would have done that at the start, when we first met the horrid thing.

[A brief pause, and then:]

I'd like to try something. Can you get a bit further back away from it for a moment?

[postictal]

Kinda'd like to know what you're planning first.

[He's amenable to a plan as long as it's sensible enough, and presumably it will be, because Muffet doesn't strike him as someone to formulate something reckless and self-destructive. That's more his speed, on a bad day.]

[Doesn't mean he's willing to have that much faith on the outset.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet can respect a little wariness, and explains:]

I want to test whether I can mislead it by firing off a bit of magic to make it chase after the projectile. But I don't want to fire from here in case it's actually bright enough to figure out where the shot came from, and I don't want both of us out there at once for safety's sake.

If you can circle back here, I'll head out.

[postictal]

As long as it doesn't start heading toward Denny, I'm willing to give it a shot.

[If it does...well, they can goddamn well burn that bridge if it comes to it. Learn in real time if baiting the thing is gonna have any bearing on where it goes and ends up, and also how fast it can move once sufficiently motivated.]

[So it won't be a total loss, probably.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet waits for Tim to circle back, and drops nimbly from the roof to land beside him when he does.]

I'm going to try for that tree over there, hopefully it won't see me in the branches. Did it seem like it could hear you at all, when you were moving around out there?

[postictal]

I don't think so, but I wasn't making a lotta noise.

[He eyes it warily, but no, it's still...doing its chaotic, no-holds-barred roll-around. Seems like it didn't detect him, and probably won't unless he presents himself in some way that makes it obvious.]

'Long as you're quiet, it probably can't pick up on you.