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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You were both...

[He lets that sentence dwindle and die. She can fill in the gaps herself, and it's not like she needs the additional guilt. They both have enough of that between them to last a lifetime.]

You didn't have any weird dreams before showing up here again, did you?

Other than your typical weird dream?

[Personally, she had just thought she was literally dreaming in her sleep. Not like her nights are the best to begin with, and in all honesty, it's not the worst things that she has dreamed about. A rude awakening, certainly, but she hadn't been in a cold sweat, drenched through and through. Just... On a beach.]

Better than waking up underground.

I'd say so, yeah.

[The Clown Box sure is a thing, but...yeah, they don't have to worry about that. It's not like Wash has been stealing anyway. Not that it's made a huge difference in terms of who the Box chooses to harass.]

Sometimes people get dreams. Hints of where they were, or...maybe what's going to happen.

No.

[Is that good or bad? Would she even want to know? Arguably, she realizes that retirement isn't going to last forever. Such a thing is simply too good to be true, and not something that she deserves. The Reds and the Blues, certainly, as they aren't the ones to screw things up, even if it had been through ignorance and misunderstanding.]

Nothing like that. It just- feels strange. [A pause, before clarifying.]</small Not being where I was.

All right.

[It's not a big deal, necessarily, it just...disrupts a pattern he thought he'd had figured out. So this place doesn't have a pattern after all. Fine. What else is new?]

You have everything that you had when you left, or is it all new?

The backpack has new items.

[Not beef jerky like last time either, but a bloody coconut... Edible, she supposes, if she can get it open. No matches, either, although the tarp will likely come in handy.]

I wasn't wearing my armour, although I'm in it again.

Probably because it must've gone back with you. At least - I didn't find it in the house.

[The house. Oh, shit.]

Which, uh. Reminds me. The house is...we've got roommates. I've got roommates. It's full, actually, though - there's probably a way to make it bigger. Hopefully.

[It's not like she had had many possessions. Her lifestyle has never been the one to gather too many. Always on the move, whether during Freelancer, or the after years. She does wonder if he had found anything, although she's not exactly going to cry over the loss of clothing. It had been special, to say the least, even if she isn't someone to worry too much about fashion.

She does pause though, and can he see that look despite the helmet, the slight arch of an eyebrow as he starts to stammer. She knows him well enough by now to realize that he's going to spit something out.

And there it is.]

Oh.

[And yes, what does she say to that? In truth, she's actually happy that he does. If CT and her had gone, Carolina wouldn't have wanted him to remain alone.]

I'll find a place nearby, anyway, for the time being.

[Should she really be alone right now? She's better, more stable than she was, but he doesn't want to just...]

[It doesn't feel right.]

You sure?

[That's not the important part, even. Christ. Come on, Wash. Get it together, Agent. She's still more of a C.O. than anyone else Wash has had in his life, so that means he needs to focus and give her a more adequate sitrep than this one.]

Look, it's not just - it's who's living there.

It's Maine. And - and Tex.

Edited 2019-06-09 18:40 (UTC)

[Once, perhaps, she would have demanded her space back, not caring that it was taken because she had left, not taking no for an answer. But she has grown a lot since her departure from Freelancer, found a peace for some events, started to learn how to cope with others. She'll likely always be haunted by her past mistakes, but she's not going to do anything stupid. Caorlina's still as stubborn as they come, and no doubt something will come on the horizon at home that will knock them out of their retirement. It's why she continues to train, even if she has also learned to 'loosen up' a little.]

I'll find a place nearby, Wash, or use my bloody tarp ti make a tent on the side of the cottage.

[She's not picky.

But there is clearly a stillness to her as he mentions those names. That grudge that she had against Tex is long gone. Foolish, she now knows, having learned something about her from Epsilon pointing it out. And Maine... That is harder, which is why she does repeat his name.]

Maine?

[As in Maine, and not the Meta.]

Yeah. Maine.

[Maine. Throat unscarred, capable of speech, capable of everything - having not yet encountered an obstacle he couldn't surmount through brute force attack.]

He's not even injured. He hasn't had his throat shot out.

Carolina, he has no idea what happens.

[Because how is Wash supposed to tell him something like that? How is he supposed to say that Maine gets hollowed out, cannibalized, twisted into something that rips apart his teammates for the ropes of code wired into their brains?]

[There is that slow breath drawn in, letting that knowledge settle. There is that flash of guilt, of course, as he had taken the bullets for her. She had thought that the AI would help him, although both of them knew how that turned out in the end.

She gives that slow nod, knowing that it is not something she would want to tell anyone. In all honesty, it likely hasn't even crossed Maine's mind to ask. He'd always been steady, that imposing figure, following orders as they had been set out to him, not involved with the bullshit.]

And Tex?

[Given that anyone can come from anytime...]

She knows...too much of what happened.

[With him. With her. With Epsilon. And then there's Church, who he doesn't even know how to get into. She never met the Alpha. She never had to contend with that.]

[God, where does he even begin.]

She was somewhere else before she ended up here. Same way C.T. was.

... and that is where she learned whatever she learned?

[Because she is going to take it in stride now, trying to not think about that too hard. CT at least had been a stepping block. Otherwise, Carolina would be a lot less composed than she otherwise would be. It's still a lot of information, and she is curious as to what Texas knows.]

Yeah. Some kind of ship called the Moira, though I don't know the extent of it. The important thing to keep in mind is that I guess she's human now.

[Which is more confusing than Church's decided one to one transfer.]

And...all that entails.

... human human?

[And not... Well, Carolina doesn't know. She knows now why Tex had been kept apart, knew what her father had been doing, but... CT had been one thing. Texas, human, is completely another.

Of course there might be a small spark to wonder how well she would do now in a sparring match, but it's not a thought that she's going to engage in.]

As far as I know. I don't think she was always. She's not...she still runs herself like she's used to being in a body that's way more resilient.

[Tex pushing herself past her limit. That's just a Church trait, apparently, and god but he hates that he had that thought. It feels wrong to have had it at all - for it to be coming from him.]

Either way, she's definitely human now.

That- [Okay, that is going to take some getting used to, no matter what else is going on. It's more the image of Tex that Carolina has now juxtaposed with what she had known of her, and what she appears to be. They hadn't always gotten along, by any means of that word, and she knows that part of it was her fault.]

That must be interesting.

[Which is not at all where her first 'that' had been going, but it works. Right? Her helmet may settle on Wash, wondering, but he had managed to survive with the Reds and the Blues, even if she had seen him all but flail and make completely frustrated noises.]

That's one word for it.

[Where does he even start? He's not explaining this nearly well enough, and he has no idea where to begin explaining Church. Fuck - Epsilon is still a fresh wound. For all the time that's passed for him, it doesn't feel like enough to process. Maybe because he hasn't allowed himself to.]

That's not it, either.

Wash...

[She's never been one to ease her way in to the water. No, Carolina would rather jump in all at once, get that shock, and move on. How worse could it get? Well, she could think of several different scenarios right then and there, but they only grow more ridiculous. She'd like to thank the Reds and the Blues, as they have been the ones having her in strange places. Pet dinosaurs? Taking on gravity? How much worse would it actually be.]

What else?

Sorry. Sorry. I just don't -

[Fuck, and he thought Maine was hard to explain this shit to. It all emerges in a rush, unbroken - trying to get it out in the open before he can lose his nerve.]

You know the Alpha. You know that's where all the A.I., the fragments, that's where they came from. The original. That's who's here too. He has...some idea of who he is, but not really anyone else, and he definitely doesn't remember much of Freelancer.

Alright.

[It's what she finally does say after a lengthy pause, although arguably it is still processing. Just what the heck has happened since she apparently left, even though she has no fricken recollection of it.

She'd be rubbing her face, but she's still suited up, and instead drops her hand back, fingers twitching slightly.]

Okay. Maine. Tex. Alpha... Human body, or not?

[Alpha. She knows that it's not like the Alpha asked for any of it, but just knowing what she does now, what her father did... Like Epsilon- and here she stills, not breathing until the pressure pounds against her chest and she is forced to take air in- but not. So very not.]

Not. It's...some robot, I think one that they scraped together back in Blood Gulch. I'm not sure if he can jump, either.

[Knowing this place, probably not. He has an even worse deal of it than Wash himself does, since at least he can shed the armor if it gets to be too much. Not so with Church. He's stuck there, and he doesn't even want to think about what might happen if he dies. What that might mean.]

[It's a noise that escapes her, part laugh, part who the hell knew what, because not even Carolina can explain this situation. It's like the start of some joke, but she has no idea what the punch line is to it. She's not certain she wants to know it anyway.]

Okay. Human Texas. Robotic Alpha. Pre-Meta Maine. Anything else to add to the mix?

I think that about covers it.

[That's all the hard bits out of the way. She makes it easy. Accepts it and moves on. He hadn't realized how badly he was missing that until it's happened, and then...god. What a difference it makes.]

...it's good to have you back, Carolina.

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