April Intro: Better Get to Digging

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: APRIL

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

Waking up to the gentle proddings of what appears to be very curious, sentient trees isn't the worst wake up call LifeAftr has to offer. For our newest arrivals, however, it may be a tad…odd.

Situated in the valley between two mountains, Elower is a scenic village filled with the friendly Roaka, tree-like beings that are rather peaceable and happy to assist those who have just arrived. I'’s a peaceful location for one to start their adventures - though, unfortunately, it doesn't stay peaceful for long.

Cahypdo: You'll Bury Me Low
Those who have explored the new island of Cahypdo in the last month will undoubtedly recall the series of quakes that shook the island throughout March. With the arrival of LifeAftr's newest adventurers comes Cahypdo's largest tremor to date, striking without warning and more than enough force to throw even the steadiest and sturdiest of your number to the ground. With a low rumble, the mountains heaped on either side of the island will start to shed an abundance of slag and debris, pouring down their slopes. Anyone who's scaling those peaks risks being flung bodily off them when the outpouring of shale comes roaring down those mountains, and anyone at the mountain bases risks being crushed beneath.

As one might expect, unsuspecting newcomers aren't all that have been shaken up. Though protected by netting and retaining walls, the cliffs around and above the village of Elower can only take so much pressure before giving way - a threshold that has been crossed entirely. With a sound like thunder, rocks fall.

Everyone dies? Only if you don't act quickly. Roaka housing is sturdy in build, enough to protect a decidedly less sturdy body from all but the heaviest of boulders. Hiding inside any of their village constructs built into the sides of the mountains will certainly save you from taking a new weight onto your shoulders. They will not, however, save you from being buried alive.

For those who become trapped inside any of those abodes, your options appear limited. Work to free yourself, or wait for help to arrive. Though, speaking of help, those outside may think to offer the Roaka a helping hand in getting their trapped people - and yours, at that - a few breaths of fresh air.

Before you suffocate.

Cahypdo: Stay Acting Brave
Such seismic activity will also stir up the local wildlife, of course. Those unfortunate enough to come across them will recognize the restless shark-dragon hybrids, hydrac, now prowling across the shorelines, while the wickedly fanged wabbits will also be far more frequent, traveling in larger numbers in the jungle and at the bases of the mountains. Taking care to avoid them would be wise - though another creature may make that venture much more difficult.

Lorbies have been unlocked in the bestiary! A strange mix between owl and serpent, the recent quake has clearly startled these usually reclusive creatures into the open. Alone, a lorby is a rather skittish animal, prone to hiding from most perceived threats. Useless for food due to the toxicity of their flesh, lorbies do have the potential to be tamed...but this comes with its own risks.

A lorby may be prone to flight rather than fight when encountered solo, but in groups, these feathery critters are far more hostile. A defensive lorby emits a piercing cry alone, but a group is an almost ear-piercing experience, capable of rendering the unfortunate unstable on their feet at best, and unconscious at worst. For the days that follow the severe earthquake that so rocked everyone's foundations, any hope for silence is lost in the infrequent bursts of almighty screeching by colonies of lorbies who have so rudely had their homes overturned and disturbed.

While the lorby is omnivorous, it may not think to take a bite at anything so much larger than them. That doesn't mean that conflict with these fluffy creatures won't attract something much more willing to take advantage of the fact that you may or may not have been reduced to a prone sack of meat. If something else does arrive, you best hope that it's a friendly face.

If you're interested in keeping a lorby for your own, bear LifeAftr's companion limit in mind - two per character, and no more. The lorby is omnivorous and can survive off of most odds and ends: insects, fruits, berries, critters it can dig up in the sand, and more. However, the process of trying to tame a lorby is not always successful. We recommend use of a d10, with the following guidelines:

Rolling a 10: Critical success! This lorby will love and adore you, and may even feel comfortable enough to drape itself along your neck like a beautiful, furry scarf, churring softly all the way.
Rolling 7-9: This lorby will prove high-strung and timid, even if safely befriended, and will take several weeks to warm up to you. But once it does, it's yours!
Rolling 2-6: Failure. The lorby enters a state of distress and starts screaming. Hope you brought earplugs, or you'll be snoozing for several long hours for your efforts.
Rolling a 1: Critical failure. Not only does the lorby start screaming, but its panic attracts a colony of its friends, and they all start screaming too.

Bear in mind that these are only guidelines; you are free to predetermine successes or failures as you'd like, presuming your character can sustain the companion! Our discord channel has a room for dice-rolls, if you prefer.

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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

Number Five | OTA

[deadlylittlething]

A; Two Worlds Collided
He's finally done it, hasn't he. The stress of facing the apocalypse a second time, realizing he'd failed at the last second, wrenching open another hole in the tapestry of time and taking all his siblings along - he's finally snapped. That's the only viable explanation for what Five is waking up to.

At least, he lets himself indulge in that thought for about three seconds. If he was ever gonna seriously believe that he's lost his marbles, he'd have shot himself thirty years ago. Doubting his own mind feels a lot like placing an electric fan next to an intricate house of cards, so he doesn't. These tree things better have a really well stocked liquor cabinet.

"Get off me or I'm going to snap you all like twigs!" he hisses and gets to his feet, waving away the creatures' concerned?? curious?? prodding. And stomps off, already taking mental stock of what the fuck just happened. Pros: reasonably sure he's not dead, despite the brief appearance of a white rabbit claiming to be god and a splitting headache from the truly ridiculous effort of jumping here, seems to have acquired a backpack with supplies and his name on it. The wood saw is pretty sharp, too. Cons: no idea where or when he is, and he's completely lost track of his siblings. So it's a day ending in Y, then.

It's the last point that gnaws at him and he begins to call out for them in earnest soon enough. "Vanya! Klaus! Anyone!" They'd just been with him. The jump was messy, sure, equations and a destination hastily compiled, but he can't have lost them on the way. He can't have screwed up that bad. Even if he had no idea if he could take people with him at all. Shit, shit, shit.

Five wanders along the valley, alternating between calling for his siblings and muttering equations to himself, trying to figure out where he went wrong.


B; And They Could Never Tear Us Apart

And then an earthquake ruins the rest of his day. The initial tremor knocks him on his ass, but the real kicker is the rockslide. Five manages to stay on top of it by teleporting out of the way of the largest boulders in space-warping flashes of energy, leaping from one shifting foothold to the next until, finally, the cliffside stills. By then, he is completely wiped, hair matted with sweat and breathing heavily from exhaustion, but alive.

Which is more than can be said of anyone trapped under the rubble. Like, say, his family.

His eyes skitter over the debris, his throat raw with dirt and dust and he staggers forward on the shifting gravel as his hands start to dig seemingly of their own accord. For a moment, he sees a hand sticking out between the rocks, stiff and dead and Five claws at the boulders more frantically, though it's gone the next moment and he ignores it, he feels like throwing up and ignores it, he can't breathe and he ignores that too.

"No, no, no..."

Somebody stop this boy before he digs himself to death.

b

[technicallytechnically]

The earthquakes have been a Thing, sure, but now things are starting to get a little alarming. Especially since Jester's sort of... gotten lost? The bad thing about an entirely new location cropping up and also having an extremely distractable disposition is: you get lost.

Thankfully, though, Jester's out of the way of the rockslide, but she sees a figure in the distance beneath the rocks and gasps in horror and starts running over, trying to keep her footing even as the earthquake is still finishing itself off. Aftershocks kick in and send her tripping over her feet, but she keeps getting back up. She knows she likely won't get there in time, but at least if they get hurt she can do something, probably. She's getting more used to which of her magic works and which doesn't these days.

As she catches up, though, it seems like they got away unscathed, but maybe... someone else didn't? Oh shit, it's that magic kid! Seeing him freaking out and frantically digging through the rubble has her start to sympathy-panic in response.

"Ahh! I'll get them out! It's okay!"

DID SHE PREPARE POLYMORPH TODAY??? Uh, no. Shit. Okay. Wait, she's got something else that can work!

She digs into her bright pink leather haversack and pulls out... a fancy paint set. She starts frantically drawing a big, black circle in the rubble.

[deadlylittlething]

It's like the dirt kicked up by the rockslide forms a fog around Five, clogging his head and tunneling his vision to nothing but the rubble in front of him, under him, all around him. The awful certainty of what he's going to find, what he's already found what he'll always find stings in his eyes, fear is a rope around his neck pulled tighter and tighter but he won't stop searching, can't stop even as he trips and scrapes up his bare knees on the rocks.

He can't seem to get his feet back under him but who cares as long as there's even a fraction of a chance he won't have to see Klaus staring at nothing with his legs crushed, Allison as grey and cold as a statue, that he won't be too late--

If there's anyone else around, he doesn't notice.

[technicallytechnically]

When Jester finally stops frantically painting, the haphazard black circle now slapped on a bunch of rocks... changes. Rather than a flat circle, it becomes a real, three-dimensional hole in the ground.

The thing is... it's only a foot deep.

"What!?" Apparently, this wasn't entirely expected. "You're supposed to be bigger! Ugh!!"

With a frustrated cry, Jester just tosses her magic paint aside, and just takes out the hand axe kept at her side and starts hacking away at the new hole, trying to dig it deeper. It's not great, folks! Ever play Minecraft? Yeah.

[deadlylittlething]

Another wave of nausea grips him, as if to mock him for the childish hope that any of the bodies he sees will somehow still be alive in the ruins--

But there aren't any bodies. Instead, there's a voice, there's motion not far off, and Five's unfocused stare finally lands on... a person. Very blue, but also very alive. The disconnect between what's happening and what he thought was happening is a jolt to his mind and processing it takes an eon, but he gets there eventually.

"W-what are you doing?" His voice is reedy and too small to his own ears.

[technicallytechnically]

Jester is almost too caught up in striking at the hole with her hand axe to answer, but then she realizes he's talking to her and she looks up, trying to catch her breath as she finally stops for a moment.

"There's a person in there, right!? Your friend or something? My stupid— useless magic paint— stupid Storyteller—"

And here, she's just started... hacking at the hole again. Sometimes kicking it with her boots.

"If we dig fast enough I can heal them!"

a.

[postictal]

A situation that's rapidly starting to become a familiar one: Tim finds a kid that looks like he's in a bad place.

He looks bedraggled, lost, he's talking to himself - all pretty sure signs that shit isn't great, to put it lightly. Tim jogs to catch up to him, hitching his pack a little more securely over one shoulder. He has a bone knife up his sleeve in case he needs it, even if he forgets whose memories that instinct belongs to. He's gotten into the habit enough for it to not be weird.

Still, he's careful to keep his distance. Just in case this kid is feeling particularly stabby.

"Hey. Hey, kid?"

[deadlylittlething]

The longer Five thinks about his current circumstances, the more obvious it becomes - he doesn't have enough information. He needs coordinates, a trajectory, he needs to retrace his steps to get back. He's trying to work through the equations involved in the jump but there's too much missing and it's impossible to keep track of all the unknowns.

"I know, this would be so much easier if I had a pen or something." He shoves a hand through his hair, suddenly catching movement out of the corner of his eye and he wheels around.

Turns out it's the first person he's seen since he got here, and something tight in his chest loosens at the sight. Because another person presents the possibility of answers, obviously.

"You!" He points at the man as if he's trying to nail him to the spot. "What's the date? Be exact."

[postictal]

Five is in luck; today is one of the few dates that Tim knows by instinct, without thinking.

"April fourth," he says, and he knows it's April fourth because today is your last birthday is burned into the texture of his thoughts like digital crumbs, courtesy of one Alex Kralie, "2019."

A hesitation, then...he lets his knapsack slide off his shoulder until it hits the ground with a thump. Keeps his tone low and conversational, like this whole exchange is perfectly normal and acceptable and not the least bit off.

All things considered, it's not the worst first meeting he's ever had. Yet.

"I've got pen and paper, if you need it. In here." A tap of his foot against his pack. He's not about to go digging in through it unless it's clear that he's not gonna stir up any paranoia over concealed weapons.

[deadlylittlething]

Thank god, finally a human being with a working understanding of the word exact. Though Five doesn't get a chance to appreciate this small mercy, as two very important conclusions occur to him. One, he hadn't meant to jump forward, so he must have made an even bigger mistake than expected.

And two, if it's really April 4th, 2019, then there's no possible way this is Earth.

Five stares at the man as if he's sprouted a second head, barely registering his weird thing with the backpack. Doesn't he understand the gravity of what he just said? "Forget pen and paper! Are you telling me that I'm on another planet?" Guess the tree creatures should have been a tip-off. "But that's insane, that would mean the parameters I've been working with were totally off--" As he's metaphorically running with this new information, he physically paces in a circle with a wild look in his eyes.

"That rabbit kept going on about-- about stories and not knowing how I got here, but I know how I got here, I just need to--" And he suddenly drops to his knees to tear open Tim's backpack, as the writing on the flap helpfully informs him, and starts digging for the pen and paper.

[postictal]

Yeah, here's hoping Five doesn't unearth anything else in there that might be potentially...explosive in the wrong hands. His firestarting beads are all gone, now, but he's still got more than a few weapons stowed in there.

"Another world, anyway. Dimension. Universe. I dunno. I'm not a scientist." And probably not as smart as someone who certainly looks an awful lot like a thirteen year old. "If you have some kinda understanding over how the world works, it's probably not gonna apply here. Word of warning."

But a notebook and pen are in there somewhere, if Five is persistent enough. Along with bunch of other shit that he probably shouldn't have just dropped into someone else's hands but, whoops.

A.

[mamaterasu]

[During his walking, Five might begin to hear a rustling in the underbrush, the heavy panting of some kind of animal lumbering through the dense forest, not exactly keen on keeping itself quiet. And why? There's no real reason to - Ammy knows the scents of people and the scents of the kind tree-like people here. Predators and prey make themselves easily known as well - they scent mark their territories and the signs are all there. It's instinctual, and she as a fellow predator knows the marks easily enough to avoid being detected (not that she actually hunts anything, but you know).

It's the signs Ammy can't predict that are harder. The trembling earth has made her anxious since she felt in the pads of her paws, and a sick churning sense kept stabbing at her gut, like the need to run from something. Something bad. Ammy has had premonitions before, and while they're rare, this is...different. It's like she can just feel something in her bones, in her very skin. Something that fills her with dread.

Eventually, a white wolf emerges a fair bit up the path Five is walking, looking strangely anxious and like she's searching for something herself. Not exactly, it's just the kneejerk reaction that's gotten her moving, the burning itch to just keep on her feet, to not stop, to keep going. Away, far away from here. Why? What's going to happen? Is something going to happen? When? How?

One ear perks up as she hear a voice close by, and she lifts her head up to blink slowly at Five, thankful for the distraction to her worrying thoughts. Her tail begins to wag behind her and she hobbles up to him with a friendly smile. Poor thing looks a bit distressed...maybe he needs a hand, trying to find or help someone? And who better than a mutt with a good nose?

Maybe it'll help calm her own nerves, too.]

[deadlylittlething]

[Five notices the rustling almost immediately, fading out his own muttering deliberately slowly to get a bead on the movements without arousing suspicion. It sounds like something large and fast, putting him on edge. At some point, he casually pauses to pick up a large stick, testing its weight in his hand briefly before moving on with it like it's nothing but a walking stick.

He's just about ready to pretend to be hurt or something to draw out the danger on his own terms, instead of waiting for it to strike, when it steps into the path of its own accord. He stops in his tracks. It's, well. Frankly, he's never seen a wolf up close, let alone one so... white. Nothing larger than a rat had survived the apocalypse, after all. And of course he'd kept a weapon on him at all times anyway, always ready to defend them and their supplies, but.

Nothing ever found him.

And then the wolf moves towards him and his hand tightens on the stick, but he doesn't lift it yet. Kinda wants to see what it's going to do, maybe.]

If you're hungry, I suggest you look elsewhere...

[mamaterasu]

[The moment she notices the shift in Five's body posture - the tension of his muscles, the intensity of his eyes - and pauses as she comes closer, looking first behind her after he speaks and then laying down with a low whine. This is always such a strange thing to encounter - someone that's afraid of her. It makes...sense? Kind of?? She is, technically, a wild animal, a wolf, and other places don't have the Story of Nagi and Shiranui to bolster their affection of bests like herself. Sigh, just someone she has to overcome.

But, she waits, panting softly, and thumping her tail on the ground as she looks idly at Five and tries to look as nonthreatening as possible. Perhaps a friendly smile as well? She licks her nose, then pulls up her lips into a pleasant, canine smile as she makes another soft whine, scooting forward another inch before waiting again.

Sue her, she's impatient.]

[deadlylittlething]

[The problem these two are facing here is that Five just doesn't have any real experience with canine body language. In fact, his experience can probably be summed up with 'ran into a dog in the park once or twice when he was a kid'. Obviously the old man wasn't ever gonna allow something as trivial as a pet in his house full of excitable children, and wolves don't exactly have a tendency to be master criminals or crucial cogs in the timeline that need assassinating.

Of course, since he wasn't allowed one, he'd always thought dogs were kind of neat.

But this isn't a dog, it's a wolf, and it's laying down and whining at him?]

Are you hurt or something? I don't-- [He frowns, puzzled, and takes a cautious step forward, driven by curiosity.] Are you by yourself? [Yeah, like it's gonna answer, tell him its life story. He quickly scans the treeline again, looking for more wolves, or an owner, or something.]

[mamaterasu]

[It doesn't answer, not in the way one would expect, but Ammy does nod her head at the question. She is alone, yes, and while not hurt necessarily, her senses are going absolutely mental. The fur on her back and neck seems to point up and fluff out, her skin twitching and tensing here and there. Every muscle in her body seems tense and coiled, like she's ready to just spring up and away at a second's notice, and her ears keep flicking and turning to each tiny vibration in the earth that she can feel.

All her natural instincts are telling her that something is coming, something bad, and she's battling her more intelligent, almost human side for control. It's like a constant anxiety, a feeling Ammy has never had before, and it's exhausting... She pants a little, and cranes her neck toward Five - without moving from her spot - to try and lick his hands.]

B!

[deathfindsaway]

Not that Kravitz has a particularly good history with yelling children, he'd like to think he's learned something since last time and may be a little better at approaching someone having a panic experience. Or well, it's more like he feels guilt leaving anyone out here having that sort of reaction with their bare knuckles in the dirt.

He approaches unarmed, calling out before he's close, holding his arms close to his chest in a gesture he hopes appears harmless.

"Excuse me, is-- is someone under there? Do you know? I don't know if there were houses over here..."

He'll keep approaching though, because if someone is in trouble, they best get moving.

[deadlylittlething]

The ash burns in Five's throat, in his eyes, making them sting and water and he wipes a shaking hand across his face. There's so much, so much destruction enveloping him, the scale of it, the people, his family--

But there's no ash.

He hears a voice and flinches away, his hands digging further into the dirt as he almost loses his balance. He was just, just alone, where did-- how did--

His horrified stare finally sort of meets the stranger's, and after another moment a few hoarse words follow.

"Who are you?" Sure, that's an intelligent question entirely relevant to the situation at hand.

[deathfindsaway]

This is a situation where it is very, very good that Kravitz no longer directly answers that question with 'I'm the grim reaper', because in this situation he would be fought to the death immediately. It's also just not a comfort for people at pretty much any point, so he's going to rephrase.

"Another resident here. Someone displaced from another world, like the group of us." He takes a step forward, though he is still a bit crouched as he gestures to the pile. "Do you know if someone is down there?"

[deadlylittlething]

Another world. Displaced residents...? The information trickles through his mind at a painful crawl, everything so much slower, so muted, as if the horror is unwilling to release its hold on him. But this isn't the end of the world. Of course not. It was just an earthquake on an island on a planet in a universe different from his own. So get it together.

He takes a shaky breath. Blinks the dust out of his eyes and turns his gaze back on the pile as if he's seeing it for the first time. "I-- No, I didn't see anyone." Then why was he digging? Suddenly it becomes imperative that he gets out of the rubble and he stumbles to his feet, a jerky movement he instantly regrets as he curls around a sharp pain in his side. Goddamnit.

[deathfindsaway]

He moves forward when it seems he's injured, reaching for Five's shoulder to steady him as he moves. "It's alright, things have been uhm-- sudden, lately." Kravitz knows he sounds like a total idiot, but he either has all the words or None Of Them and it looks like we're in bucket B right now.

In the meantime, he tries to get a look at Five's face, see if there's someone he can recognize. "Did you just arrive?"

aaand a

[lesbeau]

Yelling names is pretty standard arrival proceedure in this place- Beau is fairly sure she did it herself when she first showed up. It's the math that really gets her, that flips between the yelling and the quiet. Beau just kind of watches him for a bit, and then decides to respond.

"Well I'm anyone." She's a bit off, on top of a nearby pile of slid rubble and mud, arms crossed as she leans against a tree and looks down at him. "You know you sound like a lunatic, right? Muttering to yourself."

[deadlylittlething]

Jesus! He must be getting old, if he's so immersed in his calculations that somebody can just sneak up on him like that. Five flinches only a little, wheeling around to narrow his eyes at the woman on the pile of rubble, who apparently has some shit to say about him.

So he takes a step closer, which actually brings him up right to her face in a spacewarping flash. "And you look like a bad ninja turtle impression, so I guess we all have our crosses to bear." Satisfied that he's made his point, he jumps back to his spot further down and turns to continue on his way.

[lesbeau]

She has shit to say about everyone, no worries Five. He just stands out in a way most newbies don't, and also looks like a nerd, therefore putting him directly on the table for scrutiny. Beau raises her eyebrows as one step gets him into spitting distance, arms still crossed as he gets in his word and then goes back. This time she can watch the movement, an odd little thing that she can't place to any type of magic she knows. Weird. How is this kid able to just do that?

Hey wait he called her a name--

"I look way cooler than a turtle!" Seeing as she sadly has no clue what the ninja turtles are, that's the only rebuke she has as she slides down the pile, using longer strides and some good ol' fashioned monk speed to make it up to catch up to him. "Look, flattered you used your fancy magic just to try to insult me, but you seriously sound nuts. What do you think you're doing?"

[deadlylittlething]

Oh wow, comeback of the century, full marks all around there, lady. She can't see it until she regrettably catches up with him, but he's rolling his eyes very hard. Because it was so devastating, of course.

And the brilliant verbal sparring just doesn't stop coming, does it. Five can't help a derisive chuckle, mostly because he doesn't try to.

"You really believe what I did is magic, and I'm the one who sounds nuts? Yeah, sure."