lifeaftr | April Intro: Better Get to Digging

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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

How's that?

[Sure, the modern world is far from perfect, but... it's not all bad. Medicine seems to be getting better, at least.]

Well, here's an example.

[Michael swipes on his holo-phone, quickly moving past his home screen to a notes app, and starts tallying up numbers on it as he talks. You asked for this.]

In the 1500s, Douglas Johnson decides to get his grandmother a bouquet of roses for her birthday. So he finds a wild rosebush, picks some, walks down the lane to her house, and hands them to her. There's a good deed.

[+22.6 on the phone, in bright green text!]

Now, in the year 2017, Doug Wallace decides to get his grandmother roses for her birthday. [why are they all named Doug] So he takes out his smartphone, which was manufactured by underpaid laborers in horrific conditions, and he orders some to be sent to her house. The roses come from a farm whose labor practices Doug is now indirectly supporting. You've got to get them from there to a florist, and then to his grandmother, all of which ultimately contributes to - oh. I should have asked what year you're from...well, there's poison being spewed into the air the entire time. Also on Doug. The money he paid goes mostly to the CEO of the flower company, who spends most of his time sending dick pics to his female employees. The app developer also gets some, and he's about the same. Most rich men are. There's a few other things, but to keep it brief...

[Each of those got a negative number, Michael adds a few more real quick, and eventually you end up with something in the negative hundreds.]

By the time you tally up all the unintended bad consequences, they far outweigh any credit Doug might get for doing a nice thing. And it isn't just about not causing bad things - Doug Forcett has avoided a lot of that, but only because he lives alone in the woods, drinking his own piss and letting teenagers bully him. And since he's afraid to do anything bad, he's also never going to do enough good to be accepted into Heaven. Just can't aim high enough.

What t--

[He interrupts pointlessly half a dozen times or so, all along the lines of 'what' and 'why', forgetting they were playing cards at all.

Because (while some of it doesn't surprise him--the rich and famous will almost always be assholes, Michael has that right)... what. Why. God.]

You can't blame a guy for what the rich are doing! Who decided that?!

A cold, unfeeling bureaucracy?

[like a lot of things, really]

[Oh. That's right. For a moment there he forgot what he was talking. A demon who can and would probably enjoy snapping every single one of his bones, and there's nothing to stop him doing exactly that. Certainly Héctor can't. He might even deserve it for hurting his own family so badly!

Ha ha ha.]

Right, right... and it goes on forever.

Well, hopefully not. I had this whole thing going.

[It's a little complicated, so he won't just launch right into it. This is just a chill game of cards.]

What kind of thing?

[No, really, please do. Then again, is anything the guy says the truth?]

Sort of a legal...experimental...thing. We were trying to prove that humans who were condemned for their lives on Earth would be perfectly good people if they lived in a less shitty world.

[Thereby like, invalidating everything]

I'm designing the less shitty world.

[Chances are it's a lie. Wasn't that what he always used to hear, that 'satan' is the father of lies? Oh, well. He's interested, despite himself.]

Huh, okay. What's your idea for a better world so far?

[Did you want to just play a casual game of cards, Michael? Too bad!!]

Well, it's not really applicable to Earth. There's only going to be four humans there, so it's mostly just keeping them comfortable, providing plenty of fun things...we're going to expand the variety of wildlife, I think. I never realized how many cool birds there are.

[He flicks through a few more of those hovering screens as he talks, settling on a birds-eye view of the Neighborhood. It looks like a small village, with an ocean on one side and forests on the other.]

Hey, what are your thoughts on ice cream versus frozen yogurt? I know frozen yogurt is the "healthy alternative", but I really do like it.

Are they a whole family?

[Because that would be nice, if they were. A little wilderness retreat with free ice cream!]

They're all dead, right? Who cares about what's healthy.

It's good!

[Sure, it was originally meant as a low-key torture, but he loves it now!]

No. Well, I don't actually know who they'll be yet, but I doubt that. If they are, it won't be a good thing - the other demons are picking them out. The Judge wanted to make it fair, or something. [Michael doesn't personally like this, but. Can't really do much about it.]

Four's probably not enough people then...

[They'll snap and end up fighting. Alright, that's never happened on Enso, even though they're mostly complete strangers, but they have plenty of space and a lot more than four people...]

Pizza's good too. Give them everything and let them pick?

Oh, they'll have other people. Just not human ones. Except my humans, but they're in on it.

[It...maybe will make it a little weird for them to befriend the newbies? But it's important this time.]

There's Janet for anything specific they want. I'm really thinking more communal things for the actual buildings...there's pizza here, and here!

Your humans?

[Oh no the demon has pets.]

See, that actually sounds nice. Also a lot like whatever is going on here, in this weird little world.

Well, I hope it'll be a step up from this.

[No natural disasters!]

My human friends! [He pulls up a picture.] That's Chidi, Tahani, Eleanor, and Jason. Chidi's an ethics professor, he's going to help with that whole thing, and the rest of them are just gonna keep going to class, I guess. Provide moral support.

I mean, we're all random people, total strangers most of the time, just dumped on an island. There's even a space robot from halfway across the galaxy.

[How do you kidnap a space robot?!]

...How did you go from torturing them to being friends? [Could have been phrased less rudely, but he has to ask.]

I'm not going to drop a mountain on anyone.

[And he doesn't even know about all the other bullshit that happens here yet!]

Although there is something to be said for shared adversity bringing people together...I was working with the humans because I had to, to begin with. Got in a little over my head with the boss.

I don't know. Maybe it's one big test. It's funny. I'm practically the only guy around who isn't a robot or uses magic or--anything. I'm totally human. Never been on any wild adventures.

[So why is he here?? He's just as clueless about that a year after showing up. Someone must have made a mistake bringing him to Enso.]

Why's that?

...you do know you're a skeleton?

[It's not that alarming to Michael personally, but you crossed the "normal human guy" threshold a while back.]

Well, I - I was trying to pioneer a new form of torture that wasn't really working out. That's why I needed them, to pretend to be very tortured. Psychologically. It was, ah, supposed to be more...subtle than the normal way.

[Pft.] Yeah, I know I'm dead. Just like a billion other people. There are literally millions of skeletons.

[A demonic loser who can't think up good torment??? He wants to believe.]

...Uh, what was this new way of torturing?

Mostly psychological. Just rub all their insecurities and failings in their faces forever, while also surrounding them with people they hate.

[also being a skeleton is probably a little more remarkable than that to other humans, but Michael's not interested enough to follow up.]

They just all ended up being good to each other.

[Oh...]

So that's what made you think the whole thing isn't fair.

Most of the people who end up in Hell don't deserve it. Even the ones who do, there's moral arguments to be made - some human philosophers believe that an eternal punishment for mortal actions is always going to end up being unjust eventually.

[That isn't a topic Michael has spent much time on himself. He supposes he'll have to eventually, if he does initiate large-scale reform, but he cares so much more about saving people than figuring out punishments.]

[He keeps forgetting to play, so distracted by the conversation.]

Oh, definitely. Why put anyone in hell at all? How's that one saying go... it's better to let ten guilty people go free than punish one innocent person?

[Is he a nice guy or a scumbag who wants to avoid all consequences? He doesn't look like the most trustworthy fellow.]

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cw: sexual harassment mention?

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