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

[reflash]

I signed a year-and-a-day contract to work for a dimension-hopping fae carnival in exchange for a wish granted. It was... more of a hassle than I anticipated.

[postictal]

...

Did you get your wish?

[If you lead with that, you should expect that to be the first question you get.]

[reflash]

I think so. [But he doesn't know, and that... that stings. There's no way for him to know until circumstances are right.]

My contract ended early due to unforeseen circumstances, but the Ringmaster said she was going to make sure I received full payment. She wasn't exactly reliable, but fae tend to be bound by their word.

[postictal]

You think so.

[Well, that sucks. Investing a year and a half of your time and energy in exchange for something you're not one hundred percent sure is even going to happen?]

You sure you don't want a drink?

[reflash]

... I wouldn't turn it down. [He says, because he has to respond or it would look suspicious, and it isn't like he could say no.]

[postictal]

[A loose shrug of his shoulders.]

Hey, I just know that when people are stressed they prefer to take their minds off things. You don't have to if you don't want to.

[reflash]

Food would probably be a better idea. [He's not saying no, because it isn't true. He does want a drink, sort of. But not enough to ask for one.

Plus he hasn't eaten in... he's actually not sure how many hours. He might be on his second day without any food.]

[postictal]

Well, we've got that too. The cookies are monster food, so they won't ever go bad.

[That's an open invitation to take as many as he likes with him, because Muffet has made it very clear that she would like as many of these things to be gone as possible.]

[reflash]

Monster food? [Yukio's met Sans and Papyrus, but he didn't ever learn much about them.]

[postictal]

Made by monsters. Means they're made of magic.

[No Sans or Papyrus here. Just one very capable spider lady who's very tired of coconut.]

[reflash]

[Yukio is going to very carefully take a cookie and try it. Oh, that's good.]

Who made these? I'll have to thank them.

[postictal]

Spider named Muffet. She's been here as long as I have.

[If it occurs to him that this might sound odd, it doesn't show.]

[reflash]

[.... you know what? Sure. Why not. This might as well happen. He's eating a magical cookie made by a monster spider named Muffet.]

And how long is that?

[postictal]

Little over a year and a half. Once we hit August, it'll be two years.

[This...doesn't seem to bother him.]

[reflash]

[Eight islands over the course of a year and a half. That's far slower than the Carnival's worldhopping speed, but more time to explore means more time for things to go catastrophically wrong.]

Have most people been here that long?

[postictal]

Some have. You get more people the beginning of every month, and sometimes they disappear, but there's no predicting who's gonna show up and who's gonna be gone the next day.

[My but Tim sounds very chill about this entire thing.]

[reflash]

That sounds a lot like the Carnival. Many people did not stay for the full term of their contracts.

[postictal]

That sounds pretty miserable. Any idea where they went?

[Home, he's guessing, but like the case with the archipelago, he can't really know for sure.]

[reflash]

Home, as far as anyone knows. [It has to be.]

[postictal]

That seems to be consensus. No way to double-check, though, is there?

[There are a few people that just...died, more or less, and that was the end of it. That's all anyone heard from them.]

[reflash]

Unfortunately not. [Yukio says, tone level and expression unbothered, but his tail tucks in low, wraps around one leg like it's trying to hide.]

People rarely returned to the Carnival.

[postictal]

When they did, was it with or without their memories?

[Tim are you taking a survey.]

[Maybe. You don't know his life.]

[reflash]

From what I understand, it was either. [Yukio didn't exactly do a survey.]

What have you seen happen here?

[postictal]

Both. Neither. [A shrug.]

Sometimes they come back, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's someone who looks like someone you knew but they've been somewhere else, just like the rest of us, and memories of everything that happened there.

[reflash]

That seems like what happened in the Carnival, but I didn't ask too many questions about it.

I actually encountered something similar since being here. [He's been here for less than 24 hours.] Someone here knew me from the universe he was in previously, and I knew a different version of him in the Carnival.