lifeaftr | 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!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You got...a, uh, sensitive sense of smell?

[Unless he's just putting all the clues together. There's a reason that Tim never pretended to be the detective that Jay thought he was. Given that he just watched Keith's...whatever that was reshape itself into something decidedly sword-like, he's willing to believe it might be a bit of a heightened thing.]

Which means it was probably someone intentionally trying to fuck the place up.

Great.

Probably. ...I guess we'll know more if any other areas suffer obvious fire damage. [He flips the blade up sending a rock at the edge over the lip right into his wolf's path. As if they planned it, his wolf friend uses his nose to shove it aside.]

And yeah I do, better than a human's anyway. Not as good as his.

[He waves it off. It isn't a big deal to him anymore. And better people know in case his body reacts weirdly to any medical things. One never knows. Keith pauses in his work and his brows furrow.]

Would covering the pool with a cap we can take on and off cause any problems?

[Well, he looks pretty human, but that's almost never an indication of whether or not someone is one. Either way, Tim's met enough nonhumans to know it doesn't matter a whole lot, one way or another.]

It might. I dunno. I've never seen one get covered up like this before. What about people coming in?

[That might be a problem. Can't exactly rig an alarm system there.]

[As if on cue, Keith’s eyes shine faintly yellow and his pupils slit like a cat’s. He has been on edge and changes are just under the surface waiting for the tipping points. He turns away and puts a hand over his face.]

I miss space. Sorry, on edge. Yeah you have a point. Only thing we can really do is keep an eye on this area.

[He takes a second longer to get a grip then with a glance around them says.] I can post Ember on this. I was going to bring him over to scout above us while we explored. I trained him to sound the alarm when there’s trouble. He’s a Phoenix. Pretty hard to miss when he sounds the alarm.

[Okay, yep. Definitely not human, then. And from...outer space? Tim, being Tim, elects not to ask unless it gets to be impossible to ignore.]

Not a bad idea, assuming he doesn't set this place on fire even more than it already has been. But I don't think that's gonna be an issue. This damage looks pretty old.

[The statues got fucked up more than the mana pool. A loss of information, but ideal compared to the potential alternative.]

[If the phoenix is trained, then it'll probably be fine.]

He won't set it on fire unless I give the signal. In case you need it, [He pauses and brings his fingers to his lips. He makes two sharp low whistling notes. He pauses and repeats it.]

It probably won't be an issue but, better to handle it just in case. [He's paranoid as hell and he knows it.]

Anyway. Here's hoping this island gives us some information. We could really use some answers.

[Hey, paranoia is a #relatable feel if Tim ever had one.]

What kinda answers were you looking for? Answers to the questions we keep getting, or answers to why there's a bunch of burned shit lying around here like someone wanted this place blown up?

[Tim is expectant of neither, but if he had to choose, he's pretty sure the latter is more likely. Just..."more likely" isn't very likely, in his book.]

Both. I'm not particularly picky and I'm keeping my eyes open for anything.

I don't think we'll get much but I'm not giving up hope. [If he gives up hope...it's over. He'll have nothing left and that he can't allow. One day he'll get back to his people. Keith sighs, scrubbing at his face.]

We'll probably at least find some more supplies. How good some of it will be...who knows. I learned enough from Gladio I can melt down most metals, I think.

[Gladio. There's a name he hasn't heard in a while. He'd almost forgotten. It's easy to forget. It's so goddamned easy to let things slip out of his head, riddled with holes as his memory is. Just don't hold onto them, and they ease away between the cracks.]

You know how to use the forge?

[It's about time that someone did.]

August Intro: These Days Are Feeling Dark

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