June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

[lifeaftr_mods]

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!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[uptightness]

[She understands that. Trying to adjust to a more sedate lifestyle had been a challenge, although it hadn't exactly been the most leisurely of retirements either. It does bring a smile to her face though, as despite everything, they are memories (stupid memories, she would argue) that will stay with her.]

A purpose. I'm glad to hear that though. ... Tex and Alpha? Are they settling?

[counterblows]

Sort of. They're...kind of weird around each other, if I'm honest.

[That is the simplest way of putting it, and it also doesn't fully cover just how...fucking...weird things with them are. Just, fundamentally.]

I guess that's what I should've expected. Considering who they are.

[uptightness]

[She supposes that it is better than... well, it could be a lot different, especially considering who they are.

She nods, understanding, or at least as much as she can. Her relationship had been the strongest with Epsilon. Eta and Iota she had barely functioned with. The others had all been limited to lacking.]

I almost think you're a glutton for antics.

[counterblows]

Antics are a glutton for me. [It takes him two seconds to realize that this was the worst possible way to phrase that.]

...I mean that I don't go looking for this shit. It just happens, and then I have to clean it up, all right? You know how it is.

[uptightness]

[Too late, for it earns a soft chuckle from Carolina. She is drawn back to the lighter days of Freelancer, when they had teased him.]

Sure thing, Wash.

[But she does understand. More than most others, she really does.]

[counterblows]

...you know, Ami's been missing you. Bet she'll be real happy to see you again.

[This is his graceful segue into inviting you back to the old digs, Carolina.]

[uptightness]

[She snorts at that, as good one, Wash.]

Guess it would be rude of me not to come say hello.

[counterblows]

Exactly.

[Hopefully Tex or Church won't be there. Or, if they are, they won't be...weird about it.]

[Maine, though. Maine's probably missed her. He knows her - she's their team head, the top of the leaderboard, with no doubts whatsoever as to her capabilities.]

C'mon. You probably still remember where it is.

[uptightness]

[Weird and Churches do seem to go hand in hand. It's not like Carolina and Epsilon had gotten along in the beginning. And things with Texas? They hadn't been left all that well, if Carolina is being truthful to herself.]

Get me on the islets, and I can certainly figure it out.

[Otherwise, it's a bit of assumption based on what she knows of this place, and hoping that nothing has been switched around.]

[counterblows]

Sure. Mana pool's by the temple. Luckily this island is pretty small.

[Io's one of the more benign islands they've visited so far. Clown Box notwithstanding.]

[uptightness]

Nothing else new?

[Asking as she starts off towards the pool. Islands, moreso, or locations, considering that they have covered people already.]

[counterblows]

Few islands've come and gone since you were here. I don't think any of them are still around, except this one. And Ensō, but that's always here.

[Cahypdo stands out, but that's probably because it's the most recent. And because he spent a few days as some much, much younger versions of himself.]

[uptightness]

[She gives a nod to that, thankful that too much hasn't changed. It means that she doesn't need to investigate things all over again to learn even more of the lay of the land. Just this place, really.]

Half expected it to have changed.

[counterblows]

Changed how? Oh, though there's this.

[Give him a second, and he'll show you that his Stone of Farspeech is no longer a stone at all - it's a rectangular object, now more phonelike in design than anything else.]

Our Stones got upgrades.

[uptightness]

With this place, who knows. Trees to grow upside down, or it rains up. Maybe everything inverted.

[Trying to think of the most nonsensical things that she can think about. That's more Caboose's field of experience, although some of the other Reds and Blues could give him a run for the money.

With a glance, she huffs a little, amused.]

So that's moved in to the next century at least.

[counterblows]

It can only do text, but it's definitely better than talking into a rock and hoping that someone hears. Just happened last month, actually.

[No upside-down growing trees or raining up. Although...]

We had tree people. Does that count?

[uptightness]

Like the whole clothing situation?

[In so much as people worked and they were answered. Or did it just go through an upgrade to make it different? Hard to tell. Then again, if someone thought that rocks were a good idea, who is to say that they have much experience with such things.]

What happened to those tree people?

[counterblows]

Pretty much. [That's how most things get done around here. The people do them.]

Long story short, they were on an island with a live volcano and didn't tell us. They were fine. We weren't.

But no one died, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

[uptightness]

They didn't catch fire and burn?

[Tree. Wood. Volcano. Fire.

Sounds like one big bonfire to her.]

[counterblows]

Some of them did. But they were...trying to? It was their life cycle, basically. They came back after, is the point, just...smaller.

[He's doing a very poor job of explaining this, all right.]

[uptightness]

So, a phoenix, but a tree.

[Because why the hell not.]

[counterblows]

Pretty much. Wasn't really how it worked for us, and they didn't know that, so that was a fun island for all of us.

[He's not going to bring up the aging thing of his own accord. That? He can deal with that later.]

[uptightness]

[No, they certainly didn't work like that, and for that, Carolina is thankful. Although anyone there likely hadn't been. Was it all that the trees had known? If so, it would explain some things.]

Betting you abandoned ship- or island- pretty fast then.

[counterblows]

[That would be putting it lightly.]

Most of us did, yeah. That island disappeared last month. I don't think anyone misses it.

[uptightness]

[His reply earns a chortle from Carolina. She would question anyone who did miss it, unless it was for the fire aspect of it. Yet a nice little bonfire seems good enough without going overkill.]

Do islands ever re-appear?

[She'd never thought to ask that before.]