May Adventure: I Want to Go Where Everyone Goes

[lifeaftr_mods]

NEW ISLAND: IO

Who: Everyone!
What: Io appears!
When: May 10th and onward
Where: Io
Warnings: The possibility of drug use and alcohol may come up. Otherwise, tag as you go!

Things Are Shaping Up to Be Pretty Odd
As of May 10th, the mana pools on Ensō and its islets will now allow for travel to Io. Though you could always opt for sailing, if you wanted. As we mentioned on the island's introductory post, no exploration is necessary! The island is small enough and easily traversed, and with a minimum of dangers, you have plenty of time to visit each of Io's six draws.

The temple is the easiest place to get in touch with the local avatar, though you can contact them just as easily by striking up a conversation with just about any honeybee you see in the vicinity. The lazy drone of them can be heard all over the island, though they're quite complacent, and not at all prone to disturbing adventurers. The temple itself is twined with grapevines and smothered with inlays of rubies, proud and sparkling. Inside, it smells of honey and wine, and seems to exhibit a naturally contented glow. Just outside, numerous fruit trees sprout all about the temple's courtyard, to be sampled at your leisure.

The bathhouses are located just south of the temple, and are prime locations for some rest and relaxation. Bathe, swim, take a spa day! There are innumerable rooms to do exactly that, and more space than be reasonably filled by some sixty-or-seventy people. Or maybe you're interested in getting absolutely sloshed instead. The vineyard is perfect for that, located to Io's northeast on one of its long, tapering peninsulas. Rows upon rows of grapevines lead up to the crown jewel of the region: a proud winery with enough goods to satisfy even the most parched.

For those less keen on mind-altering substances, the tea gardens are a far safer bet. They practically emanate tranquility, with their soft paper lanterns, thickets of tea trees, and a tea room with a seemingly endless supply of every supplement to your drink that you could ask for. And if none of the teabags or tea leaves in there suit your preference, you're free to wander about the gardens yourself and sample whatever you like.

The Honeycomb at the island's heart is much more akin to a play structure or jungle gym than anything else, but its interlocking passageways and erratic, hexagonal architecture aren't for nothing. It's an ideal spot for play or exercise, if you're into that kind of thing - or for getting positively sick on honey sticks.

The campsites ensure that you don't truly have to depart from Io, if you don't want to. Tents full of chairs and cushions and blankets make it a wonderful place to spend the night if you're so inclined, and the lockers full of food and drink are assurances that you won't go hungry. And with all these massive bonfires and firework cannons, why would you ever want to leave?

---

Welcome to the island of Io! Please, enjoy your stay and make full use of this island's many faculties! For further information in regards to the island, or plotting, the following links may prove handy:

[ ♆ ] OOC info and introductory post
[ ♆ ] Io on the Locations page

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[atailoftwoworlds]

Hmmmm. Whaddaya know? [Maybe it was with combined powers? Who knows? But more importantly?] Well, at least they can't harm anyone anymore. Or at least I hope so.

Are there any other gods in this world I should be worried about? Especially ones that are still alive?

[postictal]

Not any that come to mind. Most of them are... [He's not about to call any of them nice, when they're generally prone to fucking with all of them for the hell of it, or for reasons that ultimately boil down to their presumed nature.]

...more...layered. I guess.

[That's the worst way to put it. Especially since Bliss looked like a fucking onion.]

[atailoftwoworlds]

Layered? [Like personality? Oh, wait, Tim means...] You're telling me they might not be good or bad and what they might do depends on the situation?

[Which means none of the gods would be 100% trustworthy and everyone would have to be careful.]

[postictal]

Kinda, yeah. Like, on this other island, Maati, the god there was the god of justice. Judgment? Something like that. Put us all through these trials that tested us, and a lot of us died. But if we succeeded, we got something useful out of it.

[He still has his pauldron. It's handy.]

[atailoftwoworlds]

Trials, huh? [And yet more things the gods of these islands did that resulted in lives being lost. Ugh.] Were those forced too? [So he can get an idea on what each god is like, even if they are all layered.]

[postictal]

Pretty much. We just kinda woke up with the option of go ahead with it or wait it out. Got multiple chances with those, at least. [Multiple "chances." That's probably not direct enough. What he means is:]

Multiple deaths.

[atailoftwoworlds]

Multiple......deaths? [And his voice goes quieter and more serious. He does not like the sound of that.]

[postictal]

I mean, they were easier than death here usually is. [Tim, by contrast, is remarkably glib about all of this.]

Y'know, where you have to wait a bit and then you come back and there's usually something wrong with you that gets fixed after the fact. This time you just woke up right after dying and you got to try again. But you had a limited number of...lives, I guess? After dying too many times, you died for real. Had to deal with the same shit as usual.

[atailoftwoworlds]

[He pauses, trying to process all this. Having only been here a couple of months, there are still things he needs to know about this place. Including one certain thing.....] Wait.....so.....you're saying that you come back from death here?

[Well, that's going to be hard to process.]

[postictal]

I mean...yeah?

[Shit, did no one tell him? Someone definitely should've told him.]

Death isn't permanent. Sometimes, anyway. Sometimes you come back wrong, and sometimes you don't come back at all, but usually you come back.

[atailoftwoworlds]

[Zidane gets the sense that he should have heard this earlier. Although it’s not the type of thing you might bring in everyday conversation – well, in the case of some people on this island, anyway. Either way, the idea of waking up after dying? Just like that?][He frowns in doubt. Well, that is hard to believe. Not that he thinks Tim is lying. Why would he? But it’s still a lot to take in. Then again, a lot of weird things are happening on this island already. And the Roaka kind of revived when they were swallowed by the lava of that volcano.]

Hmmm....it sounds like a bad joke to me. But maybe that’s because I haven’t seen it for myself, I guess. Is dying and coming back something that happens a lot in this place?

[postictal]

[Honestly, someone should write up a guide. It's not like people tell you this shit when you show up.]

Pretty common in places like this. It's like whoever brought us here wants to make sure it gets its full use outta us.

[It was like that in Sol, for the most part. Though Tim was...he didn't have to experience that. Chara made sure that he didn't. Cremation was a hell of a way to make sure the Queen didn't get her hands on a dead body to twist into one of her soldiers.]

[atailoftwoworlds]

You know when you word it like that, you kinda make it sound like we're here for scientific experiments. [Or everyone's being tortured because someone is sadistic or whatever. Either way, it's a very cheery picture.]

[postictal]

Maybe we are. Last place I was at, we were meant to be soldiers. Here? I guess we're...I dunno, stories. Stories in progress.

[Which is why they can't just die, huh. That would fix shit for sure.]

[atailoftwoworlds]

[Soldiers being used to fight a war or be killed. People here suffering for their accounts and suffering to be told as stories. It would make sense.

Whatever the case, he has a serious look in his eyes.]

So we could be going through whatever crap happens here just for the sake of telling stories? Man, I will wanna wipe the floor with whoever is responsible if we are. [Which could be the Story teller but considering what Zidane has heard about them, he can't be too sure of that.]

[postictal]

I dunno if that's the reason we're here. I think it's just the reason that we're not...you know, supposed to permanently die.

[Which just complicates things so fucking nicely, and he's not about it.]

[atailoftwoworlds]

[Yep that does complicate things. Although...] Hmm....it would be pretty inconvenient for the Story-teller if we all get killed off or most of us get killed off. That's true. [Does the Story-teller see them as tools? Who knows? That god themself is a mystery.]

Still, if death happens that frequently, even if we do come back....it sounds like hell. All the more reason to find out how to get home, however long that takes.

[postictal]

I guess.

[Tim, for his part...doesn't really care if he goes home or not. He doesn't want to go home at all, actually, if he can help it. He has other places he'd rather be. Like...literally anywhere else.]

Whenever you come back wrong, it wears off after a while. It just kinda sucks.

[atailoftwoworlds]

[If Zidane knew, he would have wondered if it would be possible to somehow send Tim and others to worlds other than their own if they did not want to go back to their home worlds. He just assumes that Tim might be a little sceptical about being able to go back and there’s no point in pushing that for the moment.] Oh yeah. You said something like that a minute ago. But those trials you were talking about sort of cancelled that?

[postictal]

A little, yeah. You had a set number of times you could screw up until you had to deal with death the more, uh...I guess "typical" way.

[The number of deaths you could have would vary, depending on what Trial it was. Tim was lucky. He didn't have to weather many of them, and he made it out without total failure.]