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The Mods of LifeAftr ([personal profile] lifeaftr_mods) wrote in [community profile] lifeaftr2019-08-03 07:58 pm

August Intro: These Days Are Feeling Dark

INTRO LOG: AUGUST
Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: August 4th and onward
Where: Primarily Nastrandir
Warnings: Mark as needed!
Our lucky new adventurers join the archipelago on a new chapter of our journey, with the new island of Nastrandir playing host to their arrival. With the events of last month leaving many questions in those more settled in LifeAftr, all will find they soon have…other things to think about.

New arrivals may awake at either of the locations listed below. Or they may wander!

A4: Show Me Distraction
In comparison to the warm welcome characters experienced on Io, the land of Nastrindir is not at all promising. The strip of coast hosting the mana pool is a scoop of rock and cliff, and rather unforgiving. To the east, however, it looks as though nearby wetlands leave the horizon lost in a foggy haze. The mana pool is generally a comforting, reliable constant on any island...generally. There looks to be something wrong with this one. The rocks surrounding it are blackened, various spots across their surface almost glass-like under the summer sun. After a brief inspection, most will probably gather that the pool has been set on fire in times past.

More annoying still is the tampering that's occured within the pool. The pool is partially obstructed, due to a blockage of tumbled rocks and boulders that seem to have fallen from the surrounding rocky landscape and toppled into the raised plinth. The choking of the mana water will make return trips to Ensō…inconvenient, to say the least. The rocks are an annoyance that will need to be removed before anyone will be travelling anywhere.
Also of note are the old statues that stand at opposing sides of the mana pool. In their prime, they may have towered a good fifteen or twenty feet tall. Now, however, one has been tipped onto its side, and there are large, crumbled chunks taken out of the other. Both look blackened, much like the mana pool, as though they were also set on fire at some point in their history. Whatever they may have meant to depict has been lost to time...but the parts of them that have survived look to represent smooth, rounded coils of something or another.

It might feel, to the particularly wary or those prone to paranoia, like these statues are watching you. Like they're representative of something else that might have its eye on you, even now.

Or they might not! It could be all in your head. What's way more important is the local flora in the vicinity. The parts of the land that have soil are currently host to some delightful plants that are known, colloquially, as candyplants. And, yes - they're exactly what they sound like.
Candyplants are odd plants that are not unlike a melon vine, except that their fruits take the form of giant candies. The candyfruit is quite edible, though much higher in sugar content than your more bog standard varieties of fruits and vegetables. The variation in the shapes and sizes and flavors is tremendous - some are shaped like fruit, and will have a very similar taste to the fruit they represent. The only exceptions are the ones that look rather like overgrown candy corn, which taste like...marshmallows, for some reason. But they still taste sweet, and they're still full of some of the nutrients you'd expect to find in ordinary fruit!

While candyplants are somewhat less sugary than their real candy equivalents, it's still not recommended that you gorge on them overmuch. They're probably pretty bad for your teeth, if you have any. Candyplants do keep for quite some time, though - particularly if dried, packed in jars, or otherwise preserved.

Candyplants grow in temperate areas near quantities of fresh water - which Nastrandir has in abundance. Most of them grow in shaded, open areas along the ground, like melons; plants that bear smaller candyfruits may instead behave like grapes and other climbing vines, especially when they would be otherwise crowded out by other ground plants. The plants and fruits are quite harmless, though the sweet, sugary smell that tends to linger around areas of rampant growth during hot weather can cause one hell of migraine.

B4: Snakes Are Biting at My Heels
Those who arrive a little ways away from the mana pool or find themselves daring enough to start exploring will end up on the B4 square, which is closer to the swampy environment more characteristic of Nastrandir's inland. The further east one progresses, the wetter and softer the ground underfoot will get, until you're slogging thigh-deep in freshwater algae and muck. It's pretty dirty work, but it's probably more advisable that you go roaming into the wetlands rather than sticking around in the rockier regions. - especially because those regions happen to be occupied.

That feeling of paranoia that may or may not have settled on the back of your neck on A4 will turn out to be justified. Flickers of motion in the corner of your eye, the sensation of something watching you, the clattering of pebbles and rocks sliding down the sloping inclines on Nastrandir's craggy landscape - all signs indicative that something else frequents this region.

And something does. Something large, scaly, and very hungry.

Rocobra have now been unlocked in the bestiary!
The spiny protrusions on this creature's long, sinuous body will make it quite difficult to distinguish from its surroundings; these beasts tend to disguise themselves as the surrounding mountain rock where they live. Mild chameleonic properties allow this predator to blend almost seamlessly in with a rocky environment of almost any texture and color. And, given the size of them, it's very possible you won't realize that you're stuck in one's coils until it's too late.

With thick, scaly hides, large jaws, and venomous teeth, the rocobra is deadly fast despite its significant bulk. Even at their smallest, the rocobra is often as thick as a tree trunk in girth, and can range from thirty to sixty feet in length. Rocobra specialize in draping themselves in a circle, concealing themselves among their surroundings, and waiting for unsuspecting prey to wander somewhere in their coils before drawing tight around them to constrict them into a slow and painful death, so they might be devoured.

The good news is that rocobra only ever hunt and live in solitude; it is highly unlikely you'll find more than one in any one area. Most cannot spit venom, but can deal a paralyzing strike with massive fangs that are just as likely to impale you as they are to poison you. The good news is that they do have a weakness, and that weakness is numbers - when there is more than one target for the rocobra to focus on, it can get hopelessly confused over who it should be striking first, and can be easily distracted and led along by a well-coordinated team or pair. It's advised that you strike it at the mouth, if possible, as those scales can be awfully hard to penetrate.

While the danger rocobra present is very real, that doesn't mean they're completely useless. Rocobra can potentially be harvested for venom, meat, or their tough, scaly hides.



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!


LOGSOOCSTORIESMAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )
uptightness: (suit } nooope)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-08-06 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
[So that is a big fat no, and also a lack of answer. Not that Carolina really cares too much, so long as he isn't being a pain in the ass. In the general vicinity, anyway, there doesn't appear to be too much going on, so there's a chance he won't attract something that will harm him.]

If I had a knife for every time someone said that.

[She'd have quite a few knifes. These days, she is more about protecting, or at least trying to. Maybe she'll be a soldier until the day that she dies, trying to level scales that will never swing back in her favour anyway. She's made plenty of mistakes in her thirty plus years, and it's not like that record can just be swept clean.]

New island. Never know what, or who, you're going to find.

demonicmiracle: (010)

[personal profile] demonicmiracle 2019-08-06 08:09 pm (UTC)(link)
[Crowley is, by nature, always a pain in the ass, but he can tone it down on occasion. It helps that he's confused and troubled enough about this whole deal to not want to immediately antagonize anyone he comes across. He just sounds amused when he responds.]

That sounds ominous. Are you saying I shouldn't be laying about on the rocks waiting for all of this to make sense?

[The problem with having such a definitive, certain understanding of the world — which is to say, God created everything with the help of the angels — is that things like the multiverse are just a lot to wrap his head around. Surely he should've heard about it before now, if it were real.

Also, he's feeling particularly stubborn today, on account of the fact he was having a rather lovely evening that's now been cut short.]
uptightness: (suit } and what you mean is)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-08-09 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
[She's familiar with pains in her ass, and yes, that is multiples. Of course they are literally her pains in the ass now, as once she might have simply used them and discarded them, but they are family to her now. A family she doesn't deserve, and that sometimes she wishes she would shoot.

There is a snort from her, eyeing him.]


Hey, you want to waste your time and breath, by all means, sit there for eternity.
demonicmiracle: (052)

[personal profile] demonicmiracle 2019-08-09 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
Well

[He could, in fact, sit here for all eternity. It's not like he's going to get old and die, or at least he's fairly sure he wouldn't.

It does sound boring, though.]


I suppose I'd be willing to entertain other ideas, if you've got any.

[What's there to do that isn't sitting around and waiting for everything to make sense?]
uptightness: (suit } face)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-08-11 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[Entertain other ideas... She likely should have left him to tan, although he might have been there a long time. Or, found someone else to take pity on him. Regardless, he doesn't look overly concerned about the whole situation.]

You can either explore the unexplored, or go through the mana pool. Either way, where ever you came from, it's not easy to get back to.
demonicmiracle: (052)

[personal profile] demonicmiracle 2019-08-11 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[Crowley's eyes close briefly, as he taps into a very old sense, one that he doesn't quite have a name for but always points him in the right direction. Aziraphale is somewhere nearby, he's sure of it.

So - up he gets, brushing himself off, fixing up his hair, which is in a terrible state already, and he has no pomade on hand. Tragic.]


Are you gonna be exploring the unexplored? I could tag along, if you're not opposed to company, I'm more useful than I look.

[Not that he's particularly inclined to reveal what his usefulness might be, but maybe the suggestion of it is enough.]
uptightness: (suit } oh hey)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-08-11 08:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[It had been her intention. It's as good a distraction as anythings else in this place. One can only do the same thing for so long, at least when it comes to Carolina.

He can't see the dubious look on her face. It's not exactly whether he is useful or not, but how much of an annoyance he'll actually be. Once she might have just thrown people to the wolves to get what she wants, but she's not quite as focused on being number one, or getting to that spot anyway.]


I guess... Mana pools not that far though.

[You know, just in case he wants to change his mind...]
demonicmiracle: (108)

[personal profile] demonicmiracle 2019-08-12 04:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[He might not be able to see the dubious look, but he can hear it in her tone, and flashes her what he hopes is a reassuring grin.]

Plenty of time for that, isn't there? Anyway, I'm looking for someone, think he might've ended up here about the same time I did, but it seems like we got split up. Best if I track him down before he gets into too much trouble. [It irks a little that he even needs help getting around, Crowley's always been very self-sufficient, but with his powers on the fritz, it's better to be safe. Especially when this is important, for all that he's trying to sound casual about it.] I'll keep the complaints to a minimum, promise.
uptightness: (suit } repeat)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-08-18 06:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Just because you were with someone before this place, doesn't mean they came.

[Just to give him a head's up, unknowing that he might have an ability that let him know that someone was here. Then again, Carolina supposes that he might have looked at their communication device and seen the name. He didn't look like he had been doing too much before she had come regardless.]

I was going to head this way.

[A motion of her head to signal the direction. Not like it really matters one way or the other, as exploring is exploring, but it had been the intended direction.]
demonicmiracle: (052)

[personal profile] demonicmiracle 2019-08-21 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, he'll probably be around, I'm not too worried.

[It's hard to play at being human and also say it's alright, I know he's here because I have a sixth sense for angelic beings that I've spent millennia tuning into one specific angelic being, so Crowley just sounds confident in the way that a lot of men sound confident about the world.]

Works for me, that way does. I'd offer you my arm, but I think that went out of fashion a while ago.

[So he's just going to power on ahead, he's probably gonna end up getting thwacked in the face with a branch or something. But honestly, it's what he deserves.]
uptightness: (suit } past)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-08-25 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[He is rather strange, Carolina thought, and that was something coming from her. It's not like she'd be putting her guard down anyway, especially in a new place, but she might keep a bit closer of an eye on him.]

Unless you're offering me your arm so I can beat people with it...

[Because the tone suggested that she would tear it off.]

Come on.
demonicmiracle: (040)

[personal profile] demonicmiracle 2019-08-28 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
I would, sure, but I get the sense I'm going to need it around here.

[Crowley likes his arms, he's had them for a very long time, minus one or two unfortunate incidents of discorporation.]

Yeah, yeah, alright — [He's coming! He's got long legs and everything, perfect for walking, even if he really hasn't gotten the hang of hips all these millennia later.] Have you got a name, or should I just call you sir?

[Since — military.]
uptightness: (suit } nooope)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-08-30 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Likely. Someone might be able to get it back.

[She hasn't really explored that too much, other than knowing death isn't permanent. Again, not something that Carolina knows first hand, but she has heard it from a trusted source, so she would take his word.]

I like my knives better anyway.

[But she is resourceful, and yes, would use whatever was close at hand - literally - to get a job done, although nowadays, with a bit more thought before acting.]

Carolina.

[Which isn't an actual name, rather a designation from Freelancers, but it's what everyone calls her anyway. She's distanced herself from anything relating to the Church heritage.]

You? I mean, I can think up a variety, but...
demonicmiracle: (117)

[personal profile] demonicmiracle 2019-09-01 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[That sounds like the sort of thing that would come out of another demons mouth; I like my knives better, and Crowley almost wonders if he's being threatened but —

Military humans are a bit like that, too.]


Oh, I'd love to hear whatever you come up with. [Is he taking the piss? Is he being genuine? It's a bit of both, he figures it'd probably be a good laugh.] But it's Anthony, since we're on a first name basis.

[Honestly, he'd half expected a surname from a soldier, although he supposes Carolina could be a last name. It just isn't a particularly typical one.]
uptightness: (suit } done)

[personal profile] uptightness 2019-09-02 07:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[It would be perfectly clear to him if he was being threatened, make no mistake about that. With Carolina, that had simply been a statement of fact. Of course, if she had her choice of weapon and unlimited ammunition, the answer might be something completely different.]

Anthony it is.

[Although the joke is on him, if that even is his real name. She is by nature a suspicious person, but it's not like a name has any bearing on anything, so long as he listens to it. Carolina is neither first or last, or anything in between. Yet, it suits her purpose.]

Try to keep up.