lifeaftr | May Intro: I'll Be Scrolling Through Your Shrine

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May Intro: I'll Be Scrolling Through Your Shrine

INTRO LOG: MAY

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

With potentially odd dreams connecting you to people you've never met, in addition to the dream-lecture only recently received from a horned rabbit, LifeAftr surely doesn't need to try to be disconcerting upon arrival - and yet, it somehow continues to go the extra mile. While new arrivals will find themselves upon the now (mostly) safe shores of Ensō, there is one, small problem with where, precisely, they've happened to appear.

Chamber of Glyphs: It Was Written On Your Wall
Within the temple of the Storyteller, one may find a very special room. Betwixt the reality of waking and dreams, the Chamber of Glyphs appears to hold many unique features that allow it to appear wherever one may seek it, both in waking and sleep.

It is not, however, a good room to arrive within. Those seeking out the newest members of LifeAftr's adventuring party - and those who are simply looking to draw - will be greeted, upon entering the Chamber of Glyphs, with the most alarming sight. The small pile of backpacks, unattended, might be the first thing you notice, as well as the fact that they all seem to be adorned with names of those you might not know. Or the names of those that you do, but haven't seen in some time. Perhaps you met them in a dream...

And those of you who are newly arrived, you'll be able to see them searching. Unable to break the barrier between you with sound, you might feel the urge to wave your hands for attention, attracting searching eyes to the walls. Walls that you are now a part of. Hopefully this reduction to the second dimension is only temporary.

Those who took part in April's Test Drive Meme may have the benefit of familiarity, for what is etched onto the walls of the Chamber are never lacking life, regardless of the matter used to draw, paint, or sketch those contents.

With maneuverability somewhat akin to a sidescroller - always left or right, up and down, but never outward - the variety of scenes, animals, places, objects, and more are simply all the more to your advantage. Leap to the vantage point necessary to be noticed, as your fellow adventurers may be able to help you out of this predicament with a simple offer of their hand to tug you off the wall. It's an easy solution to your predicament, at least! All they need to do is take your hand to free you from your two-dimensional containment.

If it proves more difficult...well, at the least they know you're there to point out thanks to a very tired Storyteller, who will be certain to let anyone in the vicinity know that you're in need of help within the Chamber of Glyphs, before one of the many, many monsters that have been scribbled onto stone lay claim to you instead.

What kind of monsters, you ask? All of them, of course.

Ensō: Rain Hell
But maybe you don't wake up written on the walls! Maybe you're just relieved to get unstuck from those walls and need a breath of fresh air. Or maybe you don't have any reason to go poking around in search of new arrivals at all. That does not mean, however, that you won't be encountering a new arrival of your own in the interim.

The sky is clouded over and gray, despite the sun overhead and the generally warm weather. The nights are filmed over with a screen of pale dust. This has little to do with the forecast and more to do with the volcanic eruption that occurred just a few weeks prior, on another island in the archipelago. You don't need to worry about the nature of the ash still drifting on the wind currents - aside from the more standard obstruction of sight and airways, it is, at this point, more or less perfectly ordinary. Though if you've got some fragile lungs, you might want to stay out of it as much as possible.

More important is the creature that the hazy cast of ash and dust has coaxed out of hiding. Perhaps you've heard of it in folklore: resplendent with dark gray, furry wings, and glistening red eyes. Or, perhaps, you're less fortunate, and you've no cultural experience regarding the strange monster known colloquially only as...Mothman.

At over seven feet tall and with a wingspan of about fifteen feet, the Mothman makes for far more fearsome a sight than it does a threat. For all intents and purposes, despite the devilish red of its glowing eyes and its large, hairy stature, the Mothman is ultimately quite harmless. It does, however, tend to inspire paranoia in fear in the hearts and minds of those it encounters. And this smokescreen in the air has created the perfect environment for it to hunt.

It doesn't want your flesh, or your bones, or anything so base. It only wants your mind, in a sense; your fear and whatever primal terror it may ignite by preying on your paranoia. It will stalk you, rustling the leaves behind you, snapping twigs to your left, allowing you a glimpse of bright crimson eyes before dispersing into the surrounding, ashy murk. The good news is that once it has you scared, it has no intention of sticking around - and its wings makes it incredibly fast, when it wants to be. Anyone who attempts to attack it directly will discover just how speedy it can be, assuming that the air from its wingbeats don't end up pinning you flat to the ground from the sheer force.

The Mothman can be killed, most likely...but there are a lot of you, and only one cryptid for an entire island. It's not likely to want to stay in one place if it feels it's outnumbered, or that it's about to be attacked by someone who isn't so easily stricken by the fear and suspicion it endeavors to ignite. Those who wish to escape it can at least take heart in the fact that the Mothman abhors open spaces, largely preferring the sanctuary of woodland and greenery; all one has to do is reach Ensō's shores to be largely safe from its influence.

Though you could try killing it too, of course. If you wanted.

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

[One day, he's gonna meet this guy when he's actually in a state of reasonable well-adjusted stability, and he's not gonna be a fucking freak who can't hold it all the fuck together, coming apart at just about every moment. Right now, this is not that moment. Right now, he's busy trying not to violently lose his shit.]

[It's not working out so great.]

Do you s-see it? [He sounds like a fucking kid, christ.]

Red eyes, flying around like some kind of demonic man-sized bat? Yeah, I saw it. Did it get you...?

[He hasn't seen any evidence of it actually hurting anybody, but this dude looks bad...Michael leans down to check him out.]

[He shuts his eyes to try and steady himself. Breathe in. Breathe slow.]

No. I don't think it gets anybody. It just... [He flaps a hand over one shoulder to simulate its eye-burning presence, fixed just beyond his line of sight.] Sticks around.

[He's too used to that as a means of intimidating. It shouldn't work on him. But it's close enough to what he remembers, maybe, to still hit him just as hard.]

It's being a real dick. I'm trying to chase it off, but it moves fast. If you want to be left alone, you should...

[oh hey wait hold up]

...oh! Hey, you're that kid!

[He's fortunate he has the memory of this, even if he's currently his eyes to try and limit the swooping, panicked sensation in his stomach.]

Yeah. Yeah, I am. I promise I'm not always like this. [It's a vague attempt at humor, wry and uncommitted.] Only about fifty percent of the time, I swear.

Don't worry about it. I've got a friend who would be a complete wreck right now.

[Chidi's in pretty good health, so at least he's got functioning lungs and neural impulses and all that, but Michael knows all the ins and outs of that particular crippling anxiety issue. He reaches out to put a hand on Tim's shoulder.]

Come on. This thing perches up in the trees, you've gotta get down to the beach.

[Tim jumps. He doesn't mean to. He's just - antsy about people laying their hands on him, even in the kindest of times, and he's not in a great state right now. He manages to convert the motion into a wrench upwards onto his feet, groping at the nearest tree trunk for stability.]

[He must look like shit. Hair overlong, falling in his face. Unshaven.]

It hasn't hurt anyone, has it?

[Well, noted - Michael draws back to let Tim find his way upright on his own.]

Not that I've heard. I think it just likes to mess with people.

[That's familiar. It's nothing so inherent in the creature itself. It's just what it does to people that makes them lose their minds. He'd appreciate it if this was a little less common; Tim doesn't have much mind left to lose.]

Then it's a dick.

[Grumbled under his breath as he swipes his hair from his eyes.]

Which way's the...how far inland're we?

Lots of things are.

[And lots of humans, true. Michael just has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder.]

It's not too far. Just back this way, come on. [Because he's coming too now!]

[Tim's not about to argue that. He just starts moving, pack over one shoulder, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. The fog of his own panic keeps threatening to waylay him, but he shuts his eyes, counts back from ten - over and over and over.]

[it's not really helping, but it gives him the illusion of having a goal.]

One of these days you're gonna find me somewhere that isn't in the woods, having a panic attack.

[Michael chuckles, which is possibly not the nicest reaction but what can you do]

There was a solid week after I got here when nothing bad was happening. Feels like I missed my window there.

[Laughter would put him off more if he wasn't used to it, by now. He lives with Chara; he's used to inappropriate laughter.]

When'd you arrive?

About a month ago. Got trapped under rubble that first day!

[So, you know, a pretty representative experience apparently]

How about you?

Uh...'bout a year and a half, now.

[So he is new. Fairly new, anyway, compared to Tim. But most people are on the newer side, compared to Tim. The first wave of arrivals were (un)lucky that way.]

[Michael grimaces.]

I hope I'm not here that long. I was in the middle of something very important - although the extra planning time is nice. Basically cheating, in fact.

[Hm. Maybe he should do a little crowdsourcing.]

Time's supposed to stand still while you're here. At least - at home.

[Tim, for his part, doesn't seem quite so eager to get back to wherever he came from. In fact, he'd really rather not.]

Well, sure, it's a different timeline. The one we operate on back home loops back on itself after a while - [He traces some kind of complicated shape in the air with a finger, too fast to really track.] - so I'm not worried about getting back on time anyway.

It's more about the waiting...I'd rather just do it, and know if we succeeded or not. You know?

[It's not necessarily that he's excited to return; it's a dangerous game he's playing, and there's a solid chance he'll fuck it up. But the longer it takes, the more he's just going to work himself up about it.]

You have loops back home?

[That's...familiar, but not in any of the ways it should be. It's familiar because of his experience with other people's worlds; not his own.]

[The words loop of unhappiness cycle back to him, seemingly out of nowhere, and he has to suppress a wordless burst of exasperation.]

Only the one. It's Jeremy Bearimy.

[Tim is so cursed to have invoked this topic so goddamn fast.]

And that's just us. Earth's timeline is linear, just like here.

It's - what?

[Is he having a stroke, or did he hear that right? Tim doesn't stop dead, but he comes close, stumbling slightly, and he takes the time to shake his head in an effort to clear it, marginally.]

It makes more sense if I draw it. Although humans do not care for that.

[Just in his experience, but. They really did not.]

N...no. It's okay. I'm good.

[He's pretty sure he's not gonna understand it, whatever it is.]

Well, you probably don't have to worry. I don't think you keep memories of this place if you end up going back, either. That'd be way too complicated.

Oh - really?

[well fuck, there goes his extra planning]

How do you figure?

'Cause people come and go all the time, and sometimes they don't remember ever being here.

[He says it without any particular affectation, as though it doesn't matter very much to him. But he's always been an excellent liar.]

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