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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Most dogs are like that, yes, but Ammy is not like most dogs, though the friendly face and even kinder voice and smile accompanying it certainly gets her attention. She sees an upside view of Deku from her position, but her eyes are bright and the smile that tugs up on her lips is goofy and cute. She even tucks up her front legs and slaps her tail against the nest of pillows and cushions she gathered, panting and trying in vain to lick those oh-so-tempting digits.

It seems she's keen on attention, yes, but isn't very open to relinquishing her comfy spot. At the least though, there isn't a shred of evidence that she'll bite or even nip at Deku's hands, and her belly is primed and ready for a good pet and rub, if he so wishes.]

[OH NO SHE'S CUTE.

Yeah, Izuku can't stop his smile from getting even wider at the sight of that attempt to lick, or the quiet gasp that gets because oh no airkisses. He's more than happy to move into range for her after that. Slowly, and still not quite reaching out to touch her just yet, but he is absolutely getting his hands right up into face range for Ammy - at which point the scarring and gnarled fingers on his right hand will be very obvious but shut up that's not important what's important is PRETTY DOGGY.

Seriously, he can't remember being this excited by finding a dog since primary school. But who wouldn't be delighted with encountering such a lovely fluffy friendly canine?

He got doggy airkisses. He's so doomed.]

[He'll probably be getting some real kisses soon, too. The moment his hands are in range, the wolf bumps her head into his palm, nosing into this hands and licking over and between his fingers. It's warm, wet, and sticky...and Deku will definitely have to wash his hands after this encounter, but Ammy seems about as delighted by this as he is, wagging her tail and kicking her feet to scoot a little closer toward him.

She does, however, pause when she notices all those terrible scars and callouses all over his one hand, blinking slowly with a tilts of er head and taking care to favor his right hand a tad more than the left with her kisses, her tongue making sure to cover those scars and ugly marks at least twice. Yes, she's noticed, little one - those are some pretty bad injuries there.]

[Izuku just laughs at the onslaught of canine kisses. He doesn’t really realize that she’s noticed his scars - it’s not exactly something he’s worried about, to be honest. Besides, he’s too busy taking this as tacit permission to pet, and once it seems like she’s had a chance to get used to his hands all up in her face he goes for a nice double-ear rub/headscritches combo.

Hope you don’t mind the feel of your own saliva getting rubbed into your fur, Ammy.]

You’re so pretty! [As everyone knows, vocabulary is inversely proportional to nearness of dog.] I wonder what kind of dog you are. Are you an Akita Inu? You look like one. Or a sled dog, or a...a...the big, puffy white dogs that show up in manga sometimes, you really look like them!

[Samoyeds. He’s ~~mumbling~~ talking about Samoyeds.]

[Eh, she's been covered in worse... But, as she notes there's no pain or even are real self awareness of those scars, Ammy seems to back off a bit. Though not enough to attempt stealing a kiss to Deku's cheek, or nose, if she can get in good enough range. That is, up until she's shaken by those wondrous ruffles, her eyes squinting shut out o sheer bliss, the smile on her face showing her delight. And not just her face, but the back leg begins to twitch, moving into a steady rhythm of kicking the air in time to the aggressively affectionate fingers pressing through her fur. Kids really are the best dog petters, it's been tried and true on multiple counts.]

Hrrn? [She questions, tilting her head to one side as he lists off all those....things? Oh, wait--inu! She knows that word!! How could she not?! It's her native tongue, and the wolf barks, shaking her head. Haha, so many people love to think she's a dog, but get a load of this--] Wrrrouuuu!

[Can a dog howl like that?]

[He’s certainly not about to try avoiding any facelicking, so she absolutely gets his nose at least once. It gets another giggle out of him. He can’t help it, this is so nostalgic and normal that it’s freeing.

That doesn’t stop him from noticing when she starts very clearly responding to what he’s saying, though. Especially when she shakes her head in a very clear “no” to his (not entirely intentional) rambling. The idea of a sapient animal isn’t particularly weird, or even new to him, but—

And then he’s getting a deep, full-blast wolf howl right in the face.]

...whoa.

[Even if his awe wasn’t clear in his voice, it’s all over his face. Yeah, that. That was impressive.

Izuku doesn’t entirely get it — he’s a city boy who lives the apartment life, he rarely sees regular dogs let alone has any real experience with wolves — but he’s at least starting to piece things together.]

Okay then. Not a normal dog.

[There's a very clear smile on her face as she pants, tongue hanging from her lower jaws. She seems proud, and maybe a bit...smug? Because the "whoa" was like a small bit of praise in an of itself. Not much, but enough to make her chest swell a tiny bit, head lifting up. She certainly does have an impressive howl, if she may say so herself...and usually one where she goes full gusto can summon forth the moon at night, or make the sun's rays shimmer through the clouds in the daylight.

Perks of being a goddess of light, warmth, and creation.

She is certainly no normal dog, but appears as one to Izuku. No markings, no divine weapons and rainbow flames, no swirling patterns in her fur...just a simple, plain, white wolf, though her coat glistens slightly, like freshly fallen snow. Maybe one day, he'll get to the point where "not a normal dog" becomes "actual god".

Maybe. People tend to take different amounts of time to realize the truth about her,,and it's always funny and cute in its own way. Her smile becomes a wheezy sort of laugh, and she nudges her forhead against Deku's shoulder, snuggling up to him again.]

[It's certainly possible. Izuku's no stranger to the idea that appearances can be deceiving, in a great many ways; while there is the extra hurdle that is his skewed sense of normal, she's hardly the first or last exception to that rule his time here is destined to throw at him. She'll still have her work cut out for her, since as he is now even his willingness to accept things here stops short of "actual, living deity", for...a few reasons. But she's certainly got her paw in the door.

For now, she's just a very lovely, very friendly, very extra-ordinary dog. And to Izuku, that's really not too out of the ordinary at all. Certainly not enough to resist the urge to keep petting when she's being so very cuddly.]

Well, Miss Not-A-Normal-Dog, is there anything else I should know about?

[Even if she doesn't seem to talk, she can very clearly understand him, so really there's no excuse to not ask. If she's as smart as a person, then she's a person. That requires a certain amount of courtesy.

And neck scratches, apparently.]

[Ah, that's a pretty poor nickname there, son, but she'll ignore it r now. Perhaps your creativity will be sparked after a little demonstration, yes? Since he did ask.

Now, how much does she want to show off, is the question here. Ammy doesn't really like to broadcast her powers, but she is a bit of a ham when people really ask for it, and who is she to deny anyone a good show? A thoughtful hum vibrates in her chest, eyes closing a moment as her head nods. Hm...hm...yes. That'll do. It'll probably render her powerless for a day, given the scope of what she's doing, but that shouldn't be an issue on this island - things are pleasant here, and she can rest in the sun to get back her energy and replenish her ink.

Slowly, her eyes open and her gaze falls to the ground, casting a line at seemingly nothings, then her turns, around Izuku, around herself, and a ways away from the crackling fire. No need to catch anything, these are delicate, after all. After she's done, the wolf exhales, and the sheen of her coat seems to...dim, a little. Like a wavering candle. However, the ground around them seems to burst slowly, as verdant grass trickles up from the earth, and stalks o lowers follow suit, popping open like it was nothing at all. All manner of colors and types come to life in a miniature garden around them, and the largest - a noble sunflower - towers right over the wolf, opening wide its petals, despite the laming orb having set hours ago.

There you have it. ...Satisfied, little one?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject