lifeaftr | June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

INTRO LOG: JUNE

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

New travelers to our shores are in luck, in many ways - they are arriving on the decadent, raucous island of Io, where the local Avatar of Celebration resides. Here, you can bask in enjoyment of basics such as food and drink, as well as more extravagant affairs, such as sweeping bathhouses, sprawling campsites, rich tea gardens, and verdant vineyards.

Spinning Me Around and Around
If you are just arriving on Io, opening your eyes on the shores of LifeAftr for the very first time, it will be to...a potentially very rude awakening. More specifically, it will be to the sound of loud cracks and booms overhead.

You've arrived at Io's campsite, which has come fully stocked with all sorts of cooked meats, roasted vegetables, colorful tents, drinks of every sort, and, most importantly, fireworks. It seems Io is thrilled to welcome you to LifeAftr in the form of multi-colored starbursts, exploding out across the sky in flares of showering sparks. Particularly once the sun sets, the view will be spectacular.

If you go poking around in the containers and sheds where the fireworks are kept, you'll also find all manner of strange and exciting and potentially unfamiliar variants. You can find all kinds of handheld sparklers, in addition to steel wool fireworks, handheld firecrackers, confetti poppers, and little boxes of pop pop snappers for your general use and perusal.

The message here is clear: Io wants you to celebrate your arrival! So relax! Have fun! Make some noise! Watch some colors and explosions of light, and enjoy yourself!

And try not to set anything on fire.

Just Like a Carnival
It isn't all fun and games, however. Unfortunately, it's about to get a lot less fun around here...or a lot more, depending on who you ask.

After a month or so on Io, the local avatar, Eleu, has begun to notice that a great deal of little things are starting to go missing. Bottles of wine, tents, tea leaves...people seem to be lifting whatever they please from the island and bringing it with them back to Ensō. That won't do at all. For the next few days, if any of the bees buzzing lazily about the island catch you stealing, they will approach you and ask you to stop. They will not, however, take any definitive action to stop you - they can only warn you that what you are doing may disrupt things beyond Eleu's control.

Unfortunately, by now, it's already too late. Out of the corner of your eye, regardless of your place in things - whether you were complicit in island theft, whether you are newly arrived and therefore innocent, whether you only watched on the sidelines, or whether you were totally unaware - you'll start to see it. It will peek out from behind trees and the corners of buildings.

Smiling.

This...entity probably has a name. For the purposes of the games you've been playing with this island, however, you really only need to call it what it is: the Clown Box. Accompanied almost always by the tinkle of chimes and a soft, sinister chuckling, it is unclear how the Box manages to travel about, much less disappear if you try to approach.

For the first week or so of June, be prepared to find the Clown Box lingering all over Io, particularly near the mana pool. If it looks like you're going to try and lift something off the island, something that does not belong to you - the Clown Box may retaliate. This retaliation largely occurs in the form of a hand that appears to be gloved in silky, glittering material and colorfully polka-dotted cloth, slinking out to beckon at you, eerily. It seems unwilling or unable to actually hurt you directly, but it will grow incredibly persistent if you don't acknowledge it, and stop popping up all over Io with increasing frequency.

The Clown Box can be appeased by giving it a gift. What it's really after are perceived thieves: return something you have stolen, and the Box will vanish as quickly as it appeared. However, the Box is also not terribly discerning in what it is given, as long as it is something that did, at some point, belong to you. And, if you give it enough offerings, you might end up with a gift of your own. Those who give the Clown Box multiple offerings may receive any of the following:

[ ♆ ] Rubber Duck: These novelty toys don't seem to do anything in particular, other than be cute and colorful and utter happy little honks when squeezed. But there's a slight chance you might end up with a toy that seems...oddly relevant to your personal life. It might even be designed after you. Best not to question it. Just back away from the Clown Box, slowly, and be sure to thank it for the gift...

[ ♆ ] Snotgun: What appears to be an ordinary shotgun is anything but, as one will find out by firing it, it only shoots blobs of bright green acid capable of melting just about anything. So be careful not to aim it at any of your friends.

[ ♆ ] Silk Handkerchief: There's nothing particularly special about these tri-colored squares of cloth...except that no matter what you do to them, they will not stain, tear, or fade. They can be used to clean just about anything, or even serve as a delightful party trick.

[ ♆ ] A Very Shiny Nose: A bright red foam nose, easily attached to most human-shaped faces. All this thing does is inspire a general proclivity for causing mischief and trickery, though mostly of the light-hearted kind. However, the longer the nose is left in place, the more some pranks may skew toward the downright dangerous...

You are free to RNG any of the above rewards your character gets, or pick from the list above as you like! Bear in mind that the Clown Box is a stingy creature - it will not give more than one reward to any one person, though nothing is stopping you from trading others for any gifts they may have received.

The Clown Box will cease being quite so persistent in tailing characters by June 7th, but it won't go away completely. You can still catch glimpses of it from time to time, waiting, watching, giggling quietly to itself. Even if you try to attack it, enchant it, set it on fire, you'll find that these attacks are essentially useless; it will vanish before any of them connect, and when it returns, it will certainly be to menace you further.

It isn't doing anything other than scaring you, though.

Yet.

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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The possibility that anything organic has just been sitting out in the open somewhere pleasantly minding its own business all along, and not at least sealed away for protection somehow, sounds even more wildly impossible. But then, what does he really know about the workings of weapons that can kill only one kind of life and not touch another?

(And if-)

"No, I haven't encountered...It's dead. All of it is dead. And it has been for a long time."

All of it is dead, but there it is, being green in the sunlight. He definitely feels like he's blown a fuse.

Headtilt.

"This seems unlikely. Though it is possible to extinguish advanced organic life, primitive forms are known to be capable of surviving conditions considered inimical to all forms of life: acid lakes, radiation in excess of 1.5 million rads, temperatures greater than 140 degrees Celsius."

Unless, of course, extinction was purposeful.

"Circumstances in which organic life was lost?"

"War." As purposeful as it gets.

"I didn't know about it either." Or he hadn't wanted to know, and that had amounted to the same thing. One version of himself after another. "But even now I still can't tell you why. I'm not sure any robot ever knew. Man - the humans - it just happened. They had a war and then they were gone."

(Humans Must Survive)

(RUN SELF-DESTRUCT)

"All of it, gone."

"Acknowledged." They droop slightly: their own people are also lost to such destruction.

It still seems unlikely that all organic life would be extinguished, even if all that's left of it is extremophile microbes living in some hard to access location.

"Regardless, there is both organic and human life here."

And there it is, someone's said it. His fingers slowly curl, clutching at nothing. Horatio's not certain, even now, if he could have brought himself to ask; would it have been harder to be told that there weren't, or that there were?

Would it be harder or easier if this were a lie?

What he says instead, still quietly, finally managing to turn his gaze from the impossible green: "Where?"

And then, an admission truer than he knows: "I don't think I'd know s human if I saw one."

They headtilt just slightly.

"Humans and other sapient organics gather to rest and refuel at a location known as the Denny."

They chatter a bit before continuing.

"Alternately, we are capable of contacting Human allies and requesting they come to this location."

"We will introduce you." Horatio may not know Humans, but Legion does.

"Allies," he murmurs. "You have human allies."

It isn't disbelief, not exactly (would that be easier?) but the words feel impossibly enormous in his roughened voice box even as he speaks them out loud. And yet this machine speaks these same ideas so easily! Surroundings appear normal. We will introduce you. In some distant place this profoundly impossible thing has seemingly been so very normal, all along. Unreal, yet real.

He isn't sure how to convey the thought. How do you really explain the sheer enormity of it to someone that says normal and walks in green places with Man?

"Generations of machines prayed. Even when we started to forget things about them, or tell lies and say Man never was, some of us still remembered just enough to hope."

The Second Primordium. Humans Must Survive

His eyes close briefly, open again. "I don't know what I'd say. But I do want to see them, if you'll show me."

"Yes." They have many Human allies. Unfortunately, they are trying to stick with baseline or near baseline Humans for this, so figuring out who to call is going to be a challenge.

Praying?

"Your creators hold religious significance?"

Their head tilts to the side. Though the status of the Quarians was of considerable significance to the Geth, they had never worshiped them.

"Contacting ally." And they're gonna bring out their istone and do just that.

"They did. Or still do. I guess it's complicated now. Even if they weren't really gods or a perfect machine, we still loved them. Then, and ever since. We wanted them to come back for us. And they didn't deserve to suffer and die the way they did."

Once upon a time, a massive god of the sky had spread its wings over Man and felt the same.

Horatio absently watches the other machine use the stone - he supposes he'll have to get the hang of that too, if this whole adventure ends up lasting a while. Then his gaze flickers back up to Legion's glowing eye. "Does it really sound strange to venerate your builders?"

Said ally is probably not the best choice when making first contact, but she sure does answer. Beau isn't bothered by synthetics or other nonhumans- she spends most of her time with them, so who cares. The thing is that Legion gives her very few details about what the hell is going on. Mostly a quick 'hello, please come meet an ally', which she's just... sure. What does she have to lose?

Beau arrives not long later, having risen from sleep not much previous, and still a little groggy. Still, she's absolutely dressed more old timey, so who knows if she'll fit in better. But she sees Legion first, not recognizing whoever's nearby, and gives them a little nod.

"Hey. Is this the guy you wanted me to, uhh-- something?" She twists her wrist, letting her eyes fall towards Horatio. "Hey."

"No, but we do not worship ours." Geth were created by the Quarians, after all.

Hard to worship those who desire your destruction.

It's not too long after that Beau arrives. Their headflaps pop up: though their alliance with her is tenuous, she has come to assist them, and they are pleased by her arrival.

"Humans are extinct on his world. His people were created by them, but he has not met one."

Horatio has encountered his share of the unfaithful by now - whether the uninterested, the innocently ignorant, or active deniers of Man - so to meet a machine whose culture is entirely without such a religion for whoever made them does not seem as strange to him as it might once have. A little though, still. But he hasn't turned his back on people for a thing like that before, and doesn't plan to start.

So what he says to Legion in reply as they wait is this: "It's not for me to judge it. And I'm grateful that you did this for me even without believing something like that."

And then-! He turns his head at once, and Horatio indeed wouldn't have known a human if he saw one; his first thought, if neither of the others had spoken, would have been that she had an exterior of some previously unseen flexible rubber. He would have assumed something like that, thought nothing of it, and glanced away. Ignorance of his own. How many miracles might he have passed by in his life?

He finds that, faced with this one, more miraculous than any other...yes, somehow deep in his code he does believe it, just as he'd believed Horus' last memory. And whether she proves to be coarse or graceful matters not at all. She lives.

"Are there really more of you?"

Legion's cool, as far as she's concerned. She doesn't know everyone around here, but that's all the better reason not to totally piss off the few that don't already hate her. Which is why it's so weird to watch this other-- person? Robot? whatever-- look at her like she's the second coming of the platinum dragon or something. Beau blinks between Legion and Horatio, trying to think of what she's supposed to say here.

"Uh. I mean not of me specifically, but people, yeah." She realizes right after she's said it that Legion specifically mentioned humans, and realizes she should specify. "I mean, there's also not human not robots too. But humans, yeah, uh, whole fuckin' bunch of 'em."

Beau's eyes give a furtive glance over to Legion, as if to ask if she's doing okay in this social interaction that is absolutely not scored.

(Legion is as calm and impassive as ever, save for a brief twitching of their headflaps at the realization she is anxious. They were honestly more worried Beau would try to exploit this situation for her amusement.

They turn to their fellow synthetic.)

Humans and other organic lifeforms do not share your perception of them as Gods.

(Beau is doing fine, in their opinion. Horatio is the one who is being awkward, though it's completely understandable.)

She is Beau. We are Legion, relict.

(Might as well get introductions out of the way.)

And that's two more introductions without fabrinymic or version number. At this point his theory that people in this region just don't use either is all but confirmed. (Although...would humans anywhere do that? He has, of course, less than no idea how humans work, and b'sod it all he is not about to ask.)

Still, Legion - and they are definitely not that Legion, for the humans were just as extinct in Urbani - did add something. It's not a word that Horatio's needed to pull from his language banks often, and he blinks when he finds it; whatever the exact context it's being used in he has a feeling that's not something to ask either. Or at least, not in a crowd.

"Horatio Nullbuilt, version five, though I guess I should just start saying Horatio if that's how it works here. And yes, it's...complicated all around, I get that. It's all right. I don't expect anything, and no one owes me anything," he says, and his voice is tired but firm on that point.

"It's enough to know that some humans are still out there somewhere." More than he, who is at once Horus and one built by Horus, can express. "Humans and...all this. And not-humans not-robots, too - somehow we never imagined that far."

Frankly, she's missing a lot of context around this situation that it seems unlikely she's going to get. Ultimately, it's not that difficult to understand the concept they're in, but it's emotionally hard to tangle with the fact that this is a real person now that may have this perception of her. People knowing things about her is weird, let her be a cryptid instead.

"Uhhh, yeah. 'Ss better you don't have to worry about expecting. This place doesn't work well on expectations of how things are gonna work." It's likely not the most comforting thing to hear, under the circumstances, but she's lied a lot in the past and she's making an attempt at honesty more recently. "But this is a different world, so. You're probably gonna see a lot of new stuff."

"Organic life has evolved on multiple worlds. The Geth were created by nonhuman sapient organic lifeforms known as the Quarians."

They've become used to explaining that they're not only a robot but also, from non Quarian perspective, an alien.

Does Horatio understand space travel?

"Greetings, Nullbuilt-Horatio."

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June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

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HEYOOO stumbles on in

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RL got real crazy, apologies

ya good my dude

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