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

[It's probably a good thing that Bucky doesn't really lurk, not around Beau. She's easily stronger than any other un-enhanced person he's ever met,and a warrior to boot. Which is why when he approaches her, he consciously makes noise walking up to her.

He's needed to recharge near the mana pool anyway, his left arm slowing in how easily it is to move.]

Who the hell are you yelling at?

[It's the smartest option, frankly. She'll pummel everyone, including and especially people she likes, so doing anything to make that worse is just not safe.

Beau does still swing around on him when he makes a noise, staff raised, but lowers it slightly when it at least looks and sounds like Bucky.]

It's not you who's been skittering around, right? There's something here. You seen anything?

[He considers the staff for a long moment before deciding he's much better off keeping his distance until they figure out just what's going on.]

Definitely not me.

I have been noticing something, though. Keeps vanishing whenever I try to get a good look.

[As much as she has no clue what's doing this, she's inclined to trust Bucky. The guy frequently looks like he's about to be jumped, this kind of joke doesn't feel like one he'd play. Maybe.

Mostly, it'll be a good test to see if it continues, so she pulls her staff in close to her chest to signal she isn't going to beat him with it.]

Kay, so I'm not just getting island madness. Or high.

[She has made sure the drugs wore off BEFORE she tried to operate a mana pool. Just because those things seem simple doesn't mean they are.]

Do you think they lied to us? About this place being safe. Maybe this is just someone's really fucked up idea of what a party is. Like uh, like a hunting party but they had to fatten us up first.

[Fuck is this cannibal island oh shit what if it is--]

[That gets him to... well, not relax, but he does approach her at the very least, trying to listen to anything that might be nearby, but he's not able to hear anything that he thinks is unusual.]

You're not.

[To both statements.]

I wouldn't be surprised. You've seen those tree people, right? They don't seem to notice if things could kill us. Even if we weren't lied to intentionally, that doesn't mean they know, or care, if something's actually dangerous.

[This is the wrong guy to ask about paranoid questions.]

[No relaxing, we die like paranoid idiots threatening trees. She snorts, her mind trying to think of a plan but mostly wishing Caduceus was here to be better at seeing shit than she is. All she has is her eyes and her dodge, now.]

Shit. Yeah. That bee guy might not even have known, they're a bunch of fuckin' bees.

[Not descriptive, but Bucky probably gets it. And just then, she sees something again, swinging her staff around.]

Hey! Get out here and take your ass beating, come on!

[And then... emerges the clown box. Is it walking? Is it shuffling? Was it just not there one second and There the next?? Who fucking knows. Beau stares at it a moment before turning her head halfway towards Bucky as if to confirm he, too, is seeing this-- but not taking an eye off it either.]

And you're sure we're not both high.

[She can't tell if it'll be more or less horrifying if he can see it too, but damn, there's some kind of feeling there for Sure.]

I'll admit, I didn't really go near the bees.

[The gods wig him out, to put it mildly.

But he does, indeed, get it.

At her sudden reaction, he tenses up, looking around wildly, because his enhanced senses haven't picked up on anything.

Not only is that not possible, it's not good. And then.

That sure is a thing. Whatever it is, he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. It's only the decades of training as a spy and assassin that doesn't lead to him jumping out of his skin.]

Definitely not. I can't get high; my metabolism is too quick.

[Yeah, she hasn't done a lot of talking to them herself. Mostly... necessity, if she were to call it anything. Beau enjoys having tabs on things. She enjoys knowing what the fuck is going on and why, especially when they're not public knowledge. So she scouted, got some info, and disappeared again. Just keeping tabs.

Sadly, the Clown Box is none of the things she heard anything about previous to this, so now she's just in hell.

In the meantime, she just whips her head back to stare this thing down and will it not to come any closer.]

Alright, dude, whoever's under that better come out right now or I'm gonna throw you off a cliff and find out.

[But it doesn't. Instead, there seems to be some kind of-- hole? Opening? Something Beau doesn't want to think about with a gloved hand emerging, twisting and beckoning them closer.]

Cool, I officially hate this. Is this a party trick, is, what the hell does it want?

[He has his left arm out like a shield, looking like he's ready for a fight, and one where he's going to be fighting defensively on top of that.

It's not like he's had any experience at all with creepy clown boxes, so when he approaches it, it's warily, and he only takes a few cautious steps forward.]

No arguments here over throwing one of those things over the highest cliff on this island.

[He eyes Beau so he can keep most of his attention focused on the box.]

You think it might be some kind of camouflage for a predator?

[Hello, paranoia.]

I mean, maybe, but what kind of camouflage is that?

[Like... it's bright pink and colors. That glove has sequins. If it's job is to be inconspicuous, it's doing a damn shitty job.]

Unless it preys on kids and thinks this is what they like-- and hey! We're not kids!

[It's almost amazing how she can rile herself up with her own assumptions. But it's still wiggling it's fingers, and Beau is at least trying to figure out what that means.]

Don't let it grab you, but... maybe we can bribe it to fuck off.

Some kind of surprise element, maybe?

[He shrugs.]

It looks strange, so you go up to it and bam! you're lunch to whatever's inside.

[Bucky is absolutely not helping with the whole riling up thing, is he?]

Do you have anything you can bribe it with? All I've got is some of Flora's flowers.

[They are both just a little too paranoid to weather this without a little screaming. It's just how it is.]

Man, I don't know, uhh...

[What does she have on her this time? There's the wine, sure, but she wants that. So she digs around in her bag, and pulls out... an empty wine bottle. Sure.]

Do you think it'll get mad or it just wants something?

[his sheep's name is petunia, gj self]

Maybe...? I'm not sure.

It doesn't seem like it's going to get violent right now, does it?

[look no one remembers pets who fucking knows anything, right]

... It's just hanging out, I guess.

[But she doesn't really want to piss it off. Beau's a cheater of a certain type, but she's good at making deals and coming out ahead. Beau goes back through her bag, and instead produces... a piece of bacon. It's pocket bacon (TM). Don't ask how it's still edible, it just is.]

I'm gonna try giving it this. Stand back.

[She leaves her bag on the ground in case it grabs her, and steps carefully over to the Clown Box, extending one end of the bacon strip to the hand. As soon as it's fingertips brush it, it takes it and puts the hand back into the box.

There's a moment of silence, Beau looking ready to attack. And then it just disappears.]

Alright what the fuck.

At... least it's not violent?

[Not right now. Who knows, though. He's worried that it might change its mind at any moment.

And then she just. Puts a piece of bacon onto the box and instead of the fight he's expecting, it goes and does that.]

What the hell?

[She's just kind of standing there, elbows bent, in a very clear hey what the fuck sort of expression. Slowly, after maybe a minute of pause, she turns her torso to face Bucky.]

Does this place hate me? Does it exist to fucking, mock me, or. I don't.

[Part of Beau wants to scream and part of her just wants to lie down and die. So instead, she just squints.]

What if I just walk into the ocean.

[Bucky groans, glancing over and Beau.]

You've got me. I'll never understand this damn place.

[He might be outwardly calmer, but he's with her. This is a lot of bullshit.]

Sure seems like someone is mocking people.

[She just looks at him, looks back where the Clown Box was, and throws her hands in the air.]

Alright, I'm done! I'm going back to my shitty bed to drink shitty wine wherever the hell that thing isn't. You wanna come say so now, because I'm goddamn out.

[Fuck that clown box, seriously.]

Never a dull moment around here.

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject