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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[Oh, she doesn't sing, not by any means of the word, but she has found a calling, and that calling is making the Reds and Blues squirm. And how wonderfully they had squirmed... Once they had started to dig the hole, that hole had just kept getting bigger.]

Perhaps I'll show you one day.

[Maybe if she gets bored enough here and wants to torture him a little.]

Well. It was a serious change of pace.

I get you drunk enough, maybe.

[People actually can get drunk now. He hasn't, really. Not since C.T. Not one for that. But he's been tempted, at least once.]

And now you're in another one. Another...serious change of pace, anyway.

[That barked laugh, caught by surprise at that comment.]

Drink for drink, Wash, and we'll see who'll be singing.

[Not that she's actually much of a heavy weight anyway. A beer now and again is about all that Carolina tends to manage, and even that is by no means regular, even during retirement.]

Not quite so different than what we're used to. Different place. Different people.

Thank god no one's done island karaoke.

[People have done that, actually. He's just been lucky enough to not have been there to watch.]

Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.

Second chances for some of them.

[That would be bad... Possibly really bad. Not that Carolina would likely participate anyway. One thing to mess around with Tucker and Grif, another to get this whole place on board with that.]

Mm. They deserve them. Second chances.

[How she of all people ended up with more than one chance... She'd say it was a cosmic joke.]

[Yeah, you and him both.]

Well, if we get them, why shouldn't they, right?

... it will be nice to actually see them again.

[Real, in the flesh, not some memory or nightmare or vision that is to torment her.]

Hopefully they'll be here soon. Or, uh...

[He could just. Call them. He keeps forgetting that's an option. Radio's fried, but now they have stones. Or...phones, technically.]

I guess I could call them, if you'd rather not wait. Or you could, actually.

[She could, couldn't she?

Yet there's something that halts her from doing so. It's not that she's scared, as there are few things that bring true fear to Carolina, but perhaps there is a bit of trepidation in her.

So much has changed.]

How'd they take your appearance?

Lots of questions, mostly. Tex was...she knew some of what happened. Church, a little less.

[A moment. He glances away, out into the waves.]

Maine doesn't know. About what happens to him. What happens with the Project.

[A small noise, acknowledging his words, but making no comment on it at least not yet. Someone, somewhere, is having a laugh at their expense.

Maine though.]

It's not like he was ever one to ask too many questions or pry too deeply.

[Give him a mission, point him in a direction, and off the man went.]

Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's just...

[How the hell do you bring that up to someone? How do you tell them that they're going to kill their entire team - and it won't even really be them doing it?]

I don't know how long it'll stay like that. Sooner or later, it's going to come up.

[Hard.

It's like like Maine's still swinging, taking shots across the galaxy. Like so many others, he is one of the victims of the Project. How do you tell someone a fate like that.]

No doubt. We'll deal with it when it comes up.

Cross that bridge when we get to it, huh?

[More like "burn that bridge when we get to it," but optimism isn't his strong suit. Even a little bit.]

At least we've got time to handle it.

[Or climb that mountain, height pun aside, and possibly tumble right down it.]

Knock on wood.

[Because she certainly doesn't want to jinx anything.]

Yeah.

[As if luck's ever been on their side.]

Yeah. Knock on wood.

Right. So I'll get to preparing the talk...

[Trying to lighten the situation a little. Although she might try to think about what to say. Then again, they've no idea if or how things would be revealed. Not that many people here were there the day that he and Carolina fought, and Carolina only had second hand knowledge of the time thereafter.]

You want to tell him everything?

[Wash hasn't, but he's...a coward, maybe. Reluctant to cement anything that might be capable of being changed. Reluctant to tell Maine about circumstances outside of his and everyone else's control, when all that'll likely do is make everyone hurt.]

['Cause it went over so well when he tried telling Church everything, basically.]

[Everything?

That is a tricky question. Carolina knows she'd be pissed off if something was kept from her, but Maine isn't her. And, at the end of the day, after her anger subsided, she also knew that such information wouldn't have been kept out of spite (hopefully), but out of a sense of trying to protect.]

I think- It should be his decision, what he wants to know. How much he wants to know. If and when he wants to know.

...yeah.

Me too.

[Hence why he hasn't told him much of anything.]

I'm not sure he realizes there is something he needs to know, yet. I don't know how to bring it up. I don't want to be the one to bring it up. To tell him what happens to him.

[Maybe, maybe not. Everyone is different, but Carolina might have asked about what had happened, about how things were. It's clear that they will have aged, that their armour is different, that they've changed as well.]

All we can do if be there for him if or when he does decide to ask.

Yeah.

[He hasn't...asked. Hasn't pushed. Even if Wash is obviously older, obviously different, obviously from a point in time long past where Maine is currently. Maybe he trusts that Wash has a good reason. Maybe he's just entirely too used to not questioning things unless he has to.]

[Whatever the reason, there's no knowing how long this will last.]

I guess that's all we can do.

I can take lead, if it does ever come up.

[Although Wash had been there for some of the events first hand, while Carolina hadn't, so he may well need to fill in some of the blanks.

If it ever came about.]

He had always seemed content as long as he had had some mission.

[Wash's gratitude is silent. It's in the shift of his stance, the infinitesimal sigh he allows himself.]

I think that's part of it. Why he's focused on a gym now. That's something that'll take up his time, y'know?

CT wanted her garden. Maine a gym.

[A light musing tone to that. She might not have guessed that for CT, although if others showed up, she would take a stab at what they would do in turn. It's odd to think about, and yet there is something so very normal about it. Sure, a gym is still staying in shape and remaining in top form, but it's not being a Freelancer. Maine's found his own way to adapt.]

Grif would probably want a pizza place, Tucker a strip club.

June Intro: Playing With Your Mind

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