lifeaftr | 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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yellowfang tried to understand. She tried to be patient with Tim. Why would the Twolegs need these Phones to talk to each other when they can just stand next to each other. Unless...

"So you use them to put up boarders. Interesting."

NO YELLOWFANG.

Borders?

He's...not entirely sure what she means by that. He's not sure he wants to know? He digs in his pocket, extricates his own phone, and lights it up with a press of his thumb.

"Here, like this. I think you're - yeah, since you're here, I can contact you."

He sends her a text. Her phone buzzes, lighting up with a text notification from Tim -

hi it's tim

Yellowfang doesn't expect the sudden buzz and gives a little jump--considering all the excitement from the night. She creeps back up to the phone and peers at the screen. Her reflection that she had been admiring earlier that day is gone, replaced by Twoleg scratches.

While she cannot read it, it clicks in her little cat brain just how useful something like this could be. If she had been able to use a shiny rock to tell other cats things over distance...it would save so much trouble.

"Clever..." She pats the screen curiously with a paw, her whiskers and ears pushed forward.

"Can you...read?"

That sure is a question he never felt like he had to ask, but she is a talking cat, and he sure did have to ask it. Most people can read in each other's languages, as far as he knows, but again - cat. Most cats probably aren't literate.

Good to know the Storyteller can't solve the problem of illiteracy, he guesses.

"If you mean can I look at Twoleg scratches and think they mean anything, no. Cats talk to each other with our mouths and our scents." Yellowfang explained this calmly enough.

"A Twoleg kit told me about pictures however. I think with enough studying, I may be able to make use of them."

"Well, I guess...yeah. I mean, you can still call people. Might be hard with paws, though."

For a universal form of communication, it sure does have some flaws of its own. Tim frowns at it, then hits the call button. Yellowfang's phone starts issuing his voice the same time as he talks.

"You can talk through them too, though."

Yellowfang's pupils widen from their usual judgmental slits as Tim's voice comes from two places at once. With something like this she really could talk to anybody anywhere. It would have come in handy when she'd been engulfed by plants...

The cat reaches forward to awkwardly tip the phone up on its side so that she can better speak into it.

"Why didn't you say so in the first place! I will use this. If anycat...or any one is in need of aid, they can call for me using this stone."

Yellowfang looks up at Tim and purrs softly deep in her chest. It's a gravely but earnest noise. "You show great patience dealing with an old cat."

MIght prove a problem when it comes to dialing people, but hey, maybe she'll be able to manage with paws and a nose. Tim has never had to deal with the nightmare of having cats that learn how to activate your iPhone, so he can really only guess at this point.

A corner of his mouth twitches very slightly. "Hey, this is all new stuff to you anyway. Kids who have no idea how phones work are way worse."

He really doesn't wanna be the guy to teach Ren how to use these things is all he's saying.

Yellowfang tilts her head, wondering if Twoleg kits were supposed to know how to use these things when they first open their eyes. Yellowfang also has no idea that Twoleg kits aren't born blind and deaf like kittens.

"I shall count myself lucky then."

She carefully scoops the iStone back into her bag and makes another long show of getting the little buckle closed. It was not impossible to imagine a cat that comes from an organized religion could not pick up an extra motor skill or two just from being on the island.

"You...need some help?"

He might very well regret the offer considering how prickly Yellowfang is as a person (feline?), but leaving her to fumble with apparel that was clearly meant for people with opposable thumbs feels cruel.

"I mean, if you want it."

Once she's satisfied with her backpack and wiggles through the straps to put it on herself, she gives Tim her attention again.

"Can you tell me how to get back to the island with your nest? I need to refil my herb stock and I don't trust this shore."

TAKE HER TO THE DENNY, TIM.

"Right now we're on an island called Io. Temple's...not far from here, which is where the mana pool can take us back to Ensō."

He's at least capable of realizing that she's not really referring to where he lives, but rather Denny. Which he might as well live at anyway, considering how much time he spends there. He's been known to wander there during fits of insomnia.

Yellowfang closes her eyes and groans internally. "The mana pool. Yes."

She had only used it once or twice before and she'd HATED it. Not because she overly disliked water--she was a ShadowClan cat. She was used to the shallow pools and reedy shores of her home. No, it was that terrifying sensation of being torn away and sent through nothingness that got to her.

"It shouldn't hurt to see what this island has to offer us besides noise."

"Well, there's a grove with a ton of tea leaves. Might have...uh, herbs and stuff for you to use."

A mental runthrough of the other perks of the island - winery, honeycomb, campsite, temple - is just confirmation that he's pretty sure there's nothing here that'll appeal to her. Except maybe the fruit trees outside said temple, but he can't really say.

"I'm not familiar with tea. I will have a look." Maybe it would do to learn what herbs worked well for the Twolegs. She may find herself treating them as well.

She gave off a raspy little purr of gratitude.

"It's a hot drink. A human - uh, Twoleg thing." Most ridiculous shit on these islands are, basically. "But some of them are herbal. Chamomile, mint, that kind of thing?"

He has no idea what region of the world she's from. What kind of plants she'd be familiar with.

June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

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