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

[Uh...a little from column a and a little from column b, actually. Ammy is certainly out of her world, and very much a resident of this new world, but she is no simple animal. She too, like the busy bees here, and antlered shapeshifter of Enso, a god. Unlike them, however, Ammy chooses not to speak if she can help it and only does so sparingly. Hence why the confused noises when she's suddenly called from the box are very canine.

Her head tilts to one side, and as she looks between the coaxing hand from the bizarre box and the freaked out human...she's pretty sure this weird thing is probably bad news. I mean, it gave her a pretty good scare, and the aura she feels emanating from it is...well. It's disconcerting. Not bad, but not good, either. Definitely not good. So, she meanders over toward him instead, snifing his hands and pants before looking back toward where the box was a moment ago--

To find it's much farther than it once was. Meters away, actually. Wh-When did...it move? Ammy's pretty perceptive, and she didn't even catch it. Not only that, but the hand seems to be waggling its finger in almost a tutting way, like she did something wrong.

Hm...bad.]

[Yes! Good pupper. No clowns for you. He tentatively gives her a pat on the head, because she's probably not wild but also who can tell anymore when people are out there taming furbysnakes.

But the box has moved. When did it move?? How did it move?]

Man, what'd you do to piss it off, Lassie? C'mon, let's uhhhhhh. Go find other people and civilization and maybe it'll be like mothman and not come closer? Do you have a leash or-- [No she does not.] Right cool okay. Maybe pretty puppy wants to play fetch with a stick? Let's find you a distracting stick to fetch...

[Are....are you patronizing her? ]

[Listen, sir, she may be an animal, but she is no simpleton (despite what some others say because they're RUDE)! First and foremost, she didn't do anything that isn't completely natural for her kind to do in the first place! Forgive her for have bodily functions and needing to relieve herself here and there. Hopefully you don't step in it. Secondly, she would love to play fetch....with someone that treated her a little better than just a dumb dog that gets into trouble. E-Even if that's not completely untrue--YOU KNOW WHAT, SHUSH!

The narrowed eyes and slightly raised lip over her teeth is as sure a sign as any that this guy's overstepping a few boundaries, but Ammy merely snorts a puff of air out at him before lifting her head up a bit and trotting a few feet away from him before she sits, back turned.

Yes, she's giving you the cold shoulder, my guy.]

[Wow??? How did he manage to piss off a dog?? Look, he doesn't need to eat, he doesn't carry treats with him! Nor does he have a ball. He puts his hands on his hips, tilting his helmeted head.]

Oh yeah? Maybe you don't smell so good, either, Chewie.

[He gives a look around, still not liking nor trusting The Box, and ducks off for a few moments. There is some underbrush-like crashing and cracking and banging and church are you okay--

And then he arrives back--with a stick. And waggles it enticingly.]

Puppyyyy, you want the stick? You want the stick, huh? You wanna fetch the stick?

[Excuse you?! Her odor is pleasantly earthy, thank you very much! Just because she doesn't enjoy being drowned in that foamy, overly perfumed murk, doesn't mean she smells any worse than you do, harumph!! Ammy's ears perk up and she jerks her head over her shoulder, growling at him and then...she sticks out her tongue. Not to lick her nose, or clean her face, but just to do it.

But, the moment she does turn around, she spots The Box dangerously close to this guy, and as much as Ammy isn't a fan of him right now, there is some seriously bad juju coming out from that weird thing that she doesn't exactly trust. Immediately, she's up on all fours and barking loudly, the fur on her back and neck standing up and teeth bared.]

[That's an astonishingly human thing to do. Okay. So. ...It might be an avatar god thing being. Or. Just a sentient...being. Fuck, he had a talking cat following him around, fully articu-fucking-late and aware. Maybe this one just can't speak?]

Huh. Maybe I was wrong about you, Fido; you seem pretty--

[OH BUT THE BARKING AND GROWLING oh what did he do?? What?? Did he do?? He recoils for a moment but then feels...The Looming. The looming of the box.

The box with a hand out almost! touching! him! No! Why does it want things to touch!

In a flash of brilliance/stupidity (jury's out), he lets out a totally manly noise that is indeed very brave and very manly, and shoves the broken stick into the waiting hand before backing off. The fingers curl around the stick in an uncomfortable fashion, and draws the stick...inside.

It sits there for a time. Is it...contemplating? Rebooting? Plotting? He doesn't really want to stick around and find out, but then suddenly--one moment it's there, the next it's gone.]

...Okay okay okay I don't like that as much as you don't like that so let's go let's just go let's mosey on away and just go.

[Ding-ding, we have a winner! Ammy is indeed a god and aware. She can speak and articulate just as any other human can, but is of the sound mind that, uh...sound-based speech can get muddled and tricky when really trying to showcase the truth of conversation. So much more is said in silence, she's come to find.

...Okay, that would have been hysterical had this been any other case entirely. Ammy's still not sure what this damn BAD JUJU BOX wants from either of them, and Ammy takes the initiative to move forward, in front of the man, and growl threateningly, baring her teeth and trying to look as imposing as she possibly can. Usually, seeing--heck, just hearing a wolf snarl like that can usually halt a few wayward threats, but she can also suss out their intent as well, buying a few precious seconds for others to high tail it outta Dodge. But...it doesn't seem like The Box has any ill intent, does it? Its hand goes back inside with the stick, and...

Then disappears, in the blink o an eye. Her head jerks up, ears pointed up and out, turning an twitching to try and hear for it. Nothing though, except or the far off sign of an organ grinding happily, and the distant chuckle or two. Ugh... Anyway, how you doing over there, buddy? You were, uh...well. Ammy's pretty sure you may have tried laying an egg there if you could, a second ago. But she'll come over and lick your hand comfortingly.]

June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

sorry or the delay i bingewatched three seasons of anime over the weekend SOBS

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