lifeaftr | April Intro: Better Get to Digging

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.

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

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.]

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

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.]

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.

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

[Tim are you taking a survey.]

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

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

What have you seen happen here?

Edited 2019-04-08 02:27 (UTC)

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.

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.

Seems pretty standard around here, too. I guess you could say you get used to it.

[Given Tim's utterly flat reaction to most things, it's safe to say that he certainly has.]

I suppose that's how life always is.

[Yukio hates the idea of getting used to things, despite always having to get used to things.]

Thank you for your help, I won't waste any more of your time.

You're not wasting anything. I'm here for as long as anyone else is.

[He doesn't live at Denny, but he spends basically every spare moment either here or at home.]

[Yes, but there are probably some other things that Tim could be doing right now rather than chatting with a stranger in the Denny.]

Oh, before I go, do you know if there are any doctors here?

[Deadpan:]

There's a nine-foot-tall guy with a paper bag on his head who says that he's a doctor.

I'm not sure how much I believe him.

Oh. [He's so tired of this.

Why is he the only normal medic anywhere?]

Well, if you ever have a medical problem, I have some training.

You a doctor?

[For the first time, something like wariness enters Tim's posture. Nothing so overt, but there's a shift in his stance, a subtle rocking back of his weight.]

I was assigned to the medical tent in the Carnival. [Oh, he sees that shifting, and he does what he can to try and smooth it over without being too obvious about it.]

I'm very good at cleaning wounds, wrapping twisted ankles, and suturing injuries.

[Tim hums in response to that, his brow creasing. It's...not immediately clear what this is meant to mean.]

Well, we've got an infirmary. Not sure how well-supplied it is.

I'll have to check it out. Do you know where it's located? [He hasn't looked around much yet.]

On Ensō's west coast, north of a...lake of some kind. I haven't really been there, but I think it's the only real building in the area.

[Tim does not, by nature, go to infirmaries unless it's unavoidable. He ended up in one twice at Sol, and that was two times too many.]

I suppose it would be too much to ask for everything to be in a central location. [He says, with a little laugh. It's absurd.]

We've got Denny, library, and a carpentry here. Not as bad as it could be.

[This was Tim's nominal effort to make things centralized. It didn't really pay off.]

Is there a reason you didn't build closer to one of the mana pools? [Yukio is already planning on getting an infirmary set up as close to a mana pool as possible, unless there's a valid reason not to.]

[That would've been Tim's recommendation - or at least to place it somewhere there were mana pools. But Nari had seemed certain she could make house calls...until she disappeared.]

You'd have to ask the person that set it there. Except she disappeared, and now she's back without any memory of ever being here, so good luck with that.

[He meant the Denny, but the same question goes for the infirmary as well.]

Well, I suppose I'll see what I can do about getting something a little more convenient set up.

[Hey, Denny has a mana pool.]

Good luck. [For all the deadpan delivery, he does mean it. As much as Tim means anything.]

(no subject)

reflash - 2019-04-22 20:57 (UTC) - Expand

postictal - 2019-04-22 22:21 (UTC) - Expand