lifeaftr | 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 )

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[Ben follows after Five, mostly so he can catch up and say, quietly enough he hopes Klaus isn't paying attention:]

He doesn't know he did this. [Then, at a normal volume:] Full disclosure: I don't know what hunger feels like anymore and also I may have internal - what's the word for when your organs grew back, but wrong? I think my organs came back wrong.

[He does not, in fact, notice Ben whispering to Five. He's too busy looking incredulous at what Five just said, thanks.]

Exsqueeze me? Luther isn't qualified to babysit my pet rock! —Don't tell him I said that.

[But also, Klaus has sort of seen a side of Luther that Five may not have. Ben was totally there, though. He could vouch, if Klaus felt like gossiping.

But he doesn't at the moment, so instead he scrambles after the other two to catch up.]

Ben, I'm sure your organs are fine, you just haven't eaten in like twelve years or something. I'd let you have my burrito, but the food truck decided to put soap in it, so the burrito's in hell now.

[Any chance you could have made that any more vague there, Ben? 'This' describes a pretty broad spectrum of fucked up circumstances right now. Five sensibly assumes he's talking about his resurrection from the dead and just offers a considering frown in response. At the moment, his most educated guess is a freaky combination of his own and Klaus' powers, but it's really a shot in the dark. He'll have to work on a theory later.

Unfortunately next Ben chooses to say something dumb, activating Klaus all over again and ruining any hope Five had of maybe having a normal, adult conversation with somebody around here. He just, walks a little faster to lead them out of the temple, as if he could outrun his brothers' stupidity.]

Shut up and listen, because I'm only going to say this once. As far as I've been able to determine, we're in another universe and this isn't Earth. We're on a decently sized tropical island with about sixty other people who haven't managed to raise the current level of technology out of the Stone Age, so survival works a little differently here than you're used to.

[Mostly you just have to be not a dumbass about it. He throws a pointed look over his shoulder at Klaus before continuing.]

There's a fresh water spring in the ruins here, and a couple of pools around that you can drink from. Food grows on trees. Oh, and don't go for a swim unless you're looking to get eaten by a monster. Any questions so far?

[In Ben's defense, his organs really did grow back wrong. Or rather: they grew back right for a normal person but wrong for him and now no longer rearrange themselves to accommodate the tentacles. He's about to say that when Five launches into a lecture, which . . . fair. He'll just explain later.]

How am I supposed to tell which trees are edible and which trees aren't? [That seems important, because Klaus will just eat anything so.] Or do you just mean, like. We have to go pick the fruit ourselves?

[Oh boy. That's gonna suck, they definitely don't know how to cook. At least Ben knows what fruit looks like. That's . . . that's like half a life skill.]

Edited 2019-05-25 23:25 (UTC)

[Klaus actually does pay attention to Five's lecture, to his credit. He would normally just tune it out like he did the lectures they grew up listening to because Five totally has the same "I know everything" tone as Herr Carlson and his ilk, and it's basically just a learned reflex now.

Klaus is quiet for a moment after Ben asks his questions, glancing between his brothers as he follows them.]

...Well, there's sixty people. We don't have to get our own food by ourselves. They're probably rationing.

[Hey, hi, I've lived on the streets and also trekked through the jungles of 'Nam, I know how things work, Five.

And how things work is you find someone who knows what they're doing and is stupid enough to share.]

May Intro: I'll Be Scrolling Through Your Shrine

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