lifeaftr | March Intro: Let Loose Your Glow

Entry tags:

March Intro: Let Loose Your Glow

INTRO LOG: MARCH

Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: March 4th and onward
Where: Ensō (and potentially Monsun)
Warnings: Mark as needed!

With a quiet month behind them, those on Ensō will be greeted by the new month with even more quiet days, weather only just beginning to take a turn for the immensely hot as summer begins to loom on the horizon. For our newcomers, this is also the scene in which they’ll find themselves waking; washed up on the island's shores, meeting interesting people, missing some key items, and gaining some new ones.

This peaceful time to greet one another and collect yourself won't last long, however. As the sun begins to rise into the sky, the quiet air will be disturbed by shrieks of surprise, dismay - and triumph. There is no new creature set to wipe out all life, no elevator from the sky, or clown box to chain. No. This month, the new arrivals have been set upon by Ensō's deadliest and most ruthless creatures.

Their fellow adventurers.

Ensō: Give Me One Drop
Last month, adventurers eagerly participated in the Storyteller's request to coat the island in protective ink, one of many steps the local god has been taking to keep Ensō, and its occupants, safer than they have. However, a great many variables to account for inevitably leads to something falling through the cracks - such as what to do when new arrivals arrive on these heavily protected shores.

Though they’ll have time to "automate" this process in the coming months, for now, the Storyteller once again humbly requests some assistance. Nothing harmful, of course, but...well, it does need to be done. In order for the new arrivals to be protected and not considered a threat by the local contingent of flocking, fluttering pages flying on the breeze, they'll need to come in contact with the base material that ties these protections together, and a lot of it. That base material being ink.

Which is where our more settled adventurers may step up to the plate. Though the purpose here is unstated, the return of the...equipment that was initially provided to paint the island sends a message all of its own: the Storyteller is happy for you to "assist" these new arrivals by any means necessary.

Welcome to LifeAtr, dear newcomers. Please excuse this very necessary, absolutely reasonable hazing. At the very least, all signs of ink on your personal items - and person, at that - will fade away within twenty-four hours.

And of course, the option to retaliate is yours for the taking, if you can find a bucket or water gun. There happen to be quite a few lying around on the beaches when you first wake - and they're all loaded, too.

Monsun and Ensō: As the Heavens Set Fire
Those of you who have been with us for some time may remember a time when a rather costly item request was involved in placing a mana pool on Monsun's western desert half, so as to bypass the verdant east. The mana pool in question seems to have been...lost, for the time being. It's not clear what happened to it.

Until now.

You see, Monsun didn't take kindly to you throwing its idea of balance out of balance. With the artificial placement of a mana pool on the western side of the island, it seems that hardly anyone would have any reason to visit the east, and that simply won't do. When the landscape shifted, the mana pool wasn't just lost - it was broken, its stone containment shattered, scattering its magical, greenish fluid to the sands.

It's just terribly unfortunate that it was some of Ziziphus's displaced population that were the ones who found that precious mana first. Ziziphus's creatures are most notable for being an even blend of plant and animal. Thus, they could soak up those juices by their roots...and flourish.

Have you yet encountered a rootwyrm - the plantlike dragon with entirely too many legs, bowed beneath the weight of its turtle shell and shelled in bark? Or perhaps you've had to contend with a plant beast, with its hissing lunge-attack and gaping, toothy maw. Several members of those innately hostile flora-fauna - the scrambling spindlanks, the shambling shrumal ogres - have had enough of you adventures crawling all over their territory, and are seeking to retaliate. It's not immediately clear how some of them managed to reach Ensō...but rest assured, several have.

Perhaps you'd be inclined to call these variants something catchy, like...a Rootwyrm +1, for example. Whatever the case, you can be assured that these "improved" variations are larger and stronger than their ordinary counterparts and tend to regenerate damage, having sustained the mana pool's "recharging" capabilities. And, because mana pools have multiple uses, they can also teleport - which would be how they've managed to reach Ensō, despite originating on Monsun. Thankfully, they're fairly distinctive and might be easy to avoid from a distance. They're larger and more vividly colored, for one, though they're also much more hostile by nature. It's likely they'll require a significant amount of teamwork to be successfully taken down, or at least driven back to Monsun.

Let that be a lesson in where you ask to set down your mana pools.

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

I don't think it's dead, if that's what you're asking. I don't know if anything can kill these things, but bullets aren't working so we're going to have to think of something else.

["We." As if there's a we here. Questions with no immediate answers, a teeming slurry of confused and confusing thoughts scrambling to make sense in his head, and no time to issue any of them.]

[For now, he can start with the immediate:]

This isn't an afterlife.

Bullshit.

[Well, isn't this a familiar dance of denial.] Only other explanation is like...did you drug me? Did you drug me up with something? Because I definitely had some Alice in Wonderland shit with a talking rabbit, and if that's not drug-induced I don't know what is.

[He peers at their surroundings, nothing trying to immediately kill them.] Do you know where we are? In relation to anything else here, not 'purgatory island' or whatever.

No I didn't -

[He's verging dangerously on sharply-pitched anger here, and he takes a moment, a very deliberate moment, to breathe that out and swallow it down and grit his teeth.]

This wasn't me. Do I honestly look like someone who could, or would pull off something like this?

I didn't say you're responsible for craphole island, did I fucking say that? No, I asked if you drugged me, which, I don't know how you could, but if anyone could, you could definitely pull it off!

Fine, I'll pick a direction and start walking until the next giant plant tries to eat us.

How would I drug a robot?

[Get a fucking lid on it, Washington. This isn't helping. Reorient, focus.]

We're on an island called Ensō. If I had to guess, I'd say we're in the jungle at the base of the mountain. There's a temple at the top that might be safe, but I'm not one hundred percent on that.

I don't know, maybe you fiddled with wires and got a reaction, I don't know anything except what Lucky the Rabbit told me before I woke up on a beach!

[He refuses to locate his chill, but at least mountain helps orient him some.]

Oh boy, spooky temple shit. Okay, fine, let's just go somewhere.

The Storyteller.

[Did he miss this? He doesn't think he missed this. For something to be missable it has to be something you wanted, and this is familiarity but several degrees to the left, on an axis askew, and it's difficult to track.]

[But at least he has a clear idea of where they're going.]

It's not even a spooky temple. It's just a normal - [wait. new thought occurring to him.] - when did you get here?

Unless it's a synagogue, I refuse to revise my description of a mountaintop temple on purgatory island. [it's not-]

What do you mean when did I get here--when did you get here, you said you were here for months! Which is bullshit. I just woke up on a beach, and maybe if I had someone serving me a mai tai in a lounge chair, I wouldn't have complained, and the sun hasn't set in the time I've been here.

Yeah, we're all...look. Church. What's the last thing you remember? From home.

[It's a question that heralds the sinking feeling in his guts, the nervous realization that he already knows the answer. Don't think of C.T.'s face, screwed up in dismay and outrage: he was my friend. Don't think of the Director, who he looked in the eye for the first time in years and tried not to murder on the spot.]

[Just think of the answers to the question, and the possible explanations that will make the most sense.]

From home?

[That's a funny way of putting it, even if it's legitimate. There's a long silence as Church marches his way through jungle thicket to mountain base, long enough that Wash will surely have figured out the answer in that time.

The last thing he remembers is a hell of a lot more complicated than he'd like. He remembers the disorganized remnants of someone's personality littering the place, like a background dumpster fire. The eager digital faces and cacophony of sing-song voices. Each of them reaching out to touch him like they wanted him to bless them. How familiar they all felt. How at home he felt. How complete.

Tex. Beta. Tex standing back and giving a small shake of her head and a sign. Like she didn't want this to happen but knew it would, eventually. Resignation, disappointment? Or just her normal reaction to all things Church. And a white light. Approaching. Slowly, so slowly.

Strictly speaking, Church doesn't need to breathe, but that's never stopped him from panting up a storm when running, or like now, sucking in a sharp breath as he tried to beat the last moments before waking up here back. Back back back, behind some kind of door, any kind of barricade, because if he thinks about Alpha we missed you Alpha too long he's pretty sure he's just going to start screaming.]

I remember you trying to kill us, Wash, what the fuck do you think I remember?

[Silence.]

[That in and of itself is answer enough, but he doesn't divert attention from whatever time it takes for Church to come up with the answer to that. He keeps an eye out on their six. He ensures there's nothing out to kill them on their way up the mountain, and nothing presents itself.]

[Swallows against the bundle of nerves and ice that knots up in the back of his skull.]

[Trying to kill us.]

[It's not even a little bit incorrect. And - us.]

[That tells him everything he needs.]

It's been years since then. For me.

Wh- [His helmet head whips around to give Wash a bewildered stare, and he stumbles on a root.]

What do--years, what--you've been here for years?

No.

[Instinct urges him to reach out, to steady him, but he doubts the touch would be welcome, so he clenches his fists at his sides and forces himself to grit the words out:]

I mean after the E.M.P. ...you remember that, right?

[There's something he could say about the hero never getting to see that ending - never getting to know if the day was actually saved.]

[But those aren't his words to go parroting back at anyone.]

Wash.

[He grits his nonexistent teeth, hissing out the name.]

Do you maybe wanna work on not being cryptic for once in your life?

[There's no nice, or polite way to say it. So he says it like an asshole, which is fitting, because he is an asshole and he walked Church right up to his own death and there's no point in trying to salvage it.]

What do you want me to say, Church?

You died, and the world kept going.

Edited 2019-03-06 02:05 (UTC)

I've died a lot.

And you also died.

[Or: he was supposed to die. That was the plan. That was the plan they agreed on. They both die to fix what they both did. Redemption by death is a shitty form of redemption, but it's probably better than nothing.

His hands ball at his sides, keeps marching on.]

Isn't that why we're here? Roger Rabbit wants our stories to continue or some shit.

I was supposed to.

[So he went into Freelancer Command with three objectives, and fulfilled none of them. Didn't manage to get a single thing right, in the end. It'd be a long while until he stopped screwing shit up in that very same way, too.]

[Talking and walking is easier. Gives him time to think, while he digs feet into the sloping incline.]

It didn't really work out.

Look, some people die, and they end up here instead of...wherever else they're supposed to go.

[Don't think of C.T. Don't think of her.]

[If she's lucky, she ended up back in Thedas.]

[Don't think of her.]

So, what, you're dead from another time? You said this wasn't the fucking afterlife, sounds like the fucking afterlife to me.

I didn't die, Church. I got shot and the UNSC needed someone to blame and I was it. So I got to marinate in a fucking UNSC cell for months until I learned that your friends didn't do the one thing I told them to do, and turn in Epsilon so I could at least die with my name clear.

[It slips out.]

[Always slips out. He loses his handle on it and it boils out and he can never just order this shit in a way that makes sense because it's already so cluttered, what happened and what didn't and what Church remembers and what he wouldn't have been around to remember.]

[There is...a lot to take in there. Wash didn't die. (And Church did. At least one thing went according to plan.) Kept on going. Epsilon never made it out of the hands of the Reds and Blues. There's so much to react to that for a moment, he just goes blank, and his feet stop, and he's pretty sure the world also stops, but he's not sure about the state of the world and nor does it revolve around him.]

So you could die with your name clear?

Is that all the fuck that little suicide mission was to you? So you would be remembered in the army's books as someone who wasn't completely a fucked up lunatic? All that stuff you said, what you said about getting back at the people who did this to you, and the people you cared about, and-- [what was done to Alpha, but he doesn't echo the words back, cutting himself off and letting the implication hang for a half-second.] That was all just bullshit, huh. You were fucking in it for your own fucking self.

[It doesn't really ring right. He'd been in Wash's head, however briefly, with no idea what he was looking at and quite frankly too scared to touch anything. But he'd been there. It's not implausible, it's not off the mark, but he's not sure what he's accusing Wash of is true. But he's too angry to want to think it through all the way, nearly vibrating with it, wants to yell and scream something else but doesn't trust his voice to do anything more that's coherent.

Anger's always the easier option above trying to figure anything else out that's liable to hurt.]

[He doesn't answer, doesn't rush to defend himself. He bites his tongue until he tastes copper, and he takes it because this is what he does, right? He takes what's handed to him, right? He bounces back once it happens and he eats shit and he gets the fuck back up again. That's what he does.]

[There's no part of this that is undeserved. He knows it.]

I didn't expect to come back out on the other side. If I'd known I would -

[Well, if he'd known, none of this would've happened at all, would it?]

If your point is that I never should have asked you to die for me, what do you want me to say? You're right. I shouldn't have. And nothing I do is going to change that.

[That Wash doesn't even try to deny it only fuels the grease fire that is his anger.]

I didn't do it for you!

[Everything that happened to him, and to the people around him, the people he cared about no matter how much he didn't want to admit it, the people he was responsible for. Everything that had ever fucking happened, to any of them. To Tex, Wash, Wyoming. To Grif, Donut, Tucker. To Captain Flowers, Private Jimmy, Junior.

You'll never get another shot at fixing all of this.

And none of it even mattered? Maybe that's all he and the other AI were. Loose ends to tie up. Epsilon was the only one that mattered to Wash, right from the start. Hadn't there been something nobler to the plan? Something of the truth he could just reach out and touch the frayed edges of--]

Clear up something for me here, cuz I feel like I really deserve to know: do you ever tell people the truth? Or are you such a paranoid asshole that you've gotta obfuscate everything just to get your way and look out for number one?!

[His voice pitches upward, tighter and tighter, like he's running out of air, like he's going to choke on the tight ball of emotions thrumming in his chest. And part of him can't even blame Wash for that. Why not look out for number one, after being betrayed and tossed aside? What the fuck is he to Wash? What were any of them to Wash but just pieces on a chessboard? He looks away, stamps a foot, runs a hand over his helmet as if to flatten down hair, and finally looks back again.]

Yes, I know what the word obfuscate means, don't faint.

I shouldn't have asked you to die at all.

[He was the one who guilted it into happening, wasn't he? The thing that spurred this whole mess along, and it's still hurtling to an end that he doesn't want to look at. It wasn't supposed to be something he would get the fuck up and walk away from, but he really should've known better; he gets up and walks away from everything, no matter what, because that's his sole credit, his sole skill.]

Does it matter? Are you going to believe anything I tell you, one way or the other?

I was a selfish asshole and I guilted you into laying down everything for my crusade, and you did it because you're a better person than the Director ever was.

So I'm sorry, Church. For what little it's worth.

["Church." It's a deliberate choice, even if his instinct, to sort the mess in his head, is to default to Alpha.]

[But he prefers "Church." Everyone who knew him, they preferred "Church."]

Shut up--just, shut up!

[It makes all the digital hairs on his armor-plated arms stand on end to hear Wash make mention of the Director. Something makes him want to snap and say of course he's not a better person, if anyone's a selfish asshole, it's him, that was his schtick, he's the asshole who always yells at everyone.

And if he doesn't force himself to move from this spot, he might grow his own roots. So. Face the incline. Grit your teeth. Keep going.]

I've been in your head, you stupid prick, you think I didn't pick up on a few things?

All right, like what.

[It wasn't for that long - but an A.I. never needs very long, do they. Epsilon didn't need long to set his head on fire and with that kind of seamless integration (or not so seamless, in both cases), with the way A.I. process time, none of them ever need very long.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject