lifeaftr | September Intro: Can't You See It On the Horizon

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September Intro: Can't You See It On the Horizon

INTRO LOG: SEPTEMBER

Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: September 4th and onward
Where: Both Nastrandir and Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

The island of Nastrandir remains present in the archipelago, just as it has been for the past month. By now, all the kerfuffle of the previous month's events seems to have died down as well. No more shrieking sirens, at least! There might still be an automaton or two left wandering the place, but that's only if you're unfortunate enough to run into them. They don't seem to be seeking anyone else out.

That's not to say these next few days are going to be uneventful, however.

New arrivals may awake at either island. Or they may wander between the two!

Nastrandir: Would It Keep You Awake
There's something staining the skies over Nastrandir - specifically, toward the island's east. A dark blot of something dark, possibly smoke, or steam, has started to leak lazily from some of the mountain peaks and spiral into the sky, prompting a faint rumble beneath your feet. An earthquake? Is this another island with a slumbering volcano to contend with?

As it turns out, the source of this clamor isn't an earthquake at all. It's the pounding of feet thundering ever closer.

The wildlife of Nastrandir is on the move.

You'll run into them in droves as they bolt frantically toward Nastrandir's western regions - as far away from the mountain ranges as possible. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of creature they are: from the relatively docile veep to the pesky pyjacks to the predatory rocobra, you'll recognize all sorts engaged in an out-and-out stampede away from the mountain at Nastrandir's easternmost point with a frantic scramble that one could only describe as terrified. Even the winged creatures seem desperate to get away. Anyone at the westernmost coastlines might even see some of these animals, driven so wild with their apparent need to escape, launch themselves into the sea and, inevitably, drown trying to swim away from the island itself.

It can be unsettling to watch. More worryingly, however, it can be dangerous. It's terribly easy for one to get swept up in this tide of moving hooves, scales, fur, and flesh and get launched into the ocean waves yourself. That's to say nothing of one particular beast, one that you don't recognize.

It's big. It's green. And it wants YOU...to get out of its swamp.

Noinos have now been unlocked in the bestiary!

In all likelihood, you'll be hearing this wandering foe approaching before you see it. The noino is a loud, lawless creature that wanders swamps and marshy areas in a vaguely nomadic fashion, hunting prey and searching for something that might satiate its irrepressible bloodlust. Noinos aren't so much territorial as they are outright aggressive - if they sight something that looks like it might be edible or capable of putting up a fight or both, they will rush it indiscriminately with a guttural, wordless roar.

While inarticulate, the noino isn't stupid: it has the know-how to formulate tools and can craft rough armor from sturdy bits of tree and the hides and bones of its slain enemies. Most noinos carry weapons, though seldom anything more sophisticated than a heavy club or bludgeon.

A noino's impressive stature can reach up to nine feet in height, rivaled only by its breadth and girth. The good news is that its hide, though thick and tough, is more akin to leather than it is armor, and can be easily pierced and damaged through conventional means with enough force. Still, the sight of something large, greenish, and armed coming barreling at you, hooting excitedly and eager for a fight, might not be the scariest thing you've ever seen - but it might come close.

They're not the most cunning of creatures, either. Which is why, when presented with an opportunity to fight, they will promptly forget that they were fleeing from anything - and decide to charge you head-on, instead.

Ensō: If the Waters Rise and Took Your House Away
Some of you remember that the island of Ensō has now well-established security system in the form of bird-like drifts of paper. Some of you may remember even earlier that this security system was crafted specifically to combat a particularly persistent foe. And for those of you who have been with us for a good long while, you might even remember when you woke to find much of the island in the process of being submerged.

There are no wobbling, hulking waves menacing the island and plunging everything into darkened shadow. Instead, the water lapping up against the shore will begin to creep onto land, steadily, steadily, inching along the shoreline in a way that might be very familiar, to some. It moves in a way that water definitely shouldn't be moving...and just like before, it seems to be doing this for the express purpose of seeking travelers out. It oozes up along the beaches, slinks over rocks, climbs up trees, and coats nearly everything in a thin layer of rippling ocean water.

Since you all took the time to make this island secure against all invaders, this incursion isn't going to be taken quietly. Here and there, you'll be spotting flocks of paper birds swooping down onto the watery progression, dive-bombing it with flurrying pages and ink, and attempting to drive it back. If you stay close to these "birds," you'll be safe enough from the water, and whatever it's whispering. You might even be able to pitch in and help by disrupting its path, and fighting the water back as much as you physically can.

But if you're so inclined, you could stop and have a listen to what the water has to say.

The last time travelers found themselves enveloped by the water, they received only vague images that pointed to a definitive goal. This time, things are a little different.

Anyone who gets close enough to the water for it to reach them will hear it: a soft, indistinct voice, whispering. The closer it gets, the more you'll start to hear the words.

"Take up my arms. Carry my protection."
No matter what you say in response or how long you wait, these are the only words you'll hear. It's best not to let it get too close to you, either; if left unchecked, the water will slip over you until you're coated head to toe and you can hear nothing but the soft streams of bubbles and the whispers of that strange voice, until you try and struggle free. It won't resist, should you pull away. But you will find that any electronics that get too close to the water or become submerged into it will react very strongly, with much twitching and sparking as though undergoing water damage, assuming they're not already broken - and those of you who have mechanical parts or are mechanical in nature will discover this a little more vigorously.

The words, though...they're not all talk.

If you follow the water as it recedes, you'll discover that a trail of silvery bubbles will manifest to form a sort of trail. Following it will involve diving beneath the waves, so it's recommended that you divest yourself of anything that might suffer additional water damage.

But if you follow the trail of bubbles closely, about twenty feet from the shoreline, jutting out from the sand of the seafloor, you'll find...a gift.

Anyone who claims this gift will find it very light and easy to maneuver, and sized perfectly to suit them. Whatever material the trident is made of is sturdy and apparently nigh-indestructible. When the butt is planted into a source of water, the tines will light up with a blueish, watery glow. Once they are fully "charged," so to speak, one will find that they can launch a powerful jet of water at a range of up to fifteen feet in either a continuous stream or a flurry of various water-pellets. Once it runs out of its charge, one only needs to place it in another source of water to charge it again.

It's a gift. And, for now at least, it appears to come with no strings attached.

Enjoy it.

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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[Wash is still sopping wet from the ocean waves himself, sloshing out from the sea with a trident in hand, looking more than a little dazed over why the hell any of this happened in the first place. At least, he realizes a second later, he's not the only one.]

[Looks like Beau got the same treatment.]

...you too, huh?

[She jumps just a bit at the voice, swinging her head around to address them and causing loose wet hair to whap across her eyes. Just as hurriedly she takes her free hand and shoves them on top of her head, so Beau can properly see what's up.]

Oh shit. Didn't even see you down there.

[Maybe her curiosity had taken her too far. It was one thing to be investigating a voice and another thing entirely to be-- well, this looks like a big deal. Beau's eyes flick from her trident to his, comparing them quickly.]

You got any idea what the fuck that was?

[Look, at least she didn't stab him with the thing. That might seem an uncharitable thought, but when your first meeting starts off with someone aiming to sock you across the face, you learn to adjust for changing standards.]

Which...side were you on? Last month?

[It's an answer to her question. It's just a roundabout one. Because Wash has a theory, but he needs to know if it holds any, uh...]

[Well. Any water.]

[C'mon Wash, aren't they friends now? She'll only hit you when she feels like it, not out of reflex. Gaining a tiny bit of trust means the hits are now strictly purposeful.]

Side?

[Oh, right-- right, the memories. She didn't get into it with a lot of people; it wasn't her strong suit, and she knew she needed to end it as fast as possible.]

Uhh, not really either. 'Mm the one who found the thing, but it was also like. Next to me when it blew up. Mostly my ears are still ringing.

[She quirks an eyebrow his way, as if to return the question.]

Oh.

[He glances down at the trident in his hands, uncertainly. That was really his only solid theory, and it sounds like that's a bust.]

I just mean...some of us had this idea that the water was on our side. That it'd...protect us? This felt like it might've been the same thing.

[It's not that he minds that, in some ways. It's kind of a relief to know that the influence of those memories isn't really there anymore. He prefers that. He...really does.]

Oh. Uh.

[She feels the trident in her hand, concentrating hard to try and recall anything related, but comes up short. In the blips of memory she can recall, she had wanted to fight for the island-- but the blare of the sirens tended to drown that out more than it sank her in. Maybe she just got lucky.

Beau looks back up towards him, pushing the end of the trident into the sand.]

Doesn't sound like it's that clear cut. But this sure feels like a bribe anyway, huh? Who gives away weapons unless you're strong enough to not care about if they're turned on you anyway?

Unless there's something else at work here.

[He's willing to bet there is. He just...doesn't know what it is yet.]

A bribe from the sea? I'm not sure how to interpret that. Feels like there's another shoe waiting to drop. Giving out a free weapon isn't the same as handing out something like food, or supplies.

[His concern is over whether they should be bracing themselves for something...big.]

[Beau hums along, but it's obvious her brain is still turning, trying to put together everything they've already done.]

Kinda think it is. This entire universe is dangerous. Giving away anything that someone's gonna need in their worst hour? Makes you wanna like 'em more. And everything I've ever read about the lore here says the Water's an asshole.

[She looks back down at the trident, furrowing her brow.]

Besides, I don't want it to think I owe it anything.

If the water's the reason my armor doesn't work right, then I'm right there with you.

[Last week he was practically keeling over since it was just locking down and becoming fully inoperable - in his mildly amnestic state, he'd forgotten that it required a regular recharge, and he hadn't been maintaining it.]

It was...talking to me. I heard it speaking.

Didn't you?

I'll blame anything on anybody.

[But that's not really the point here, and she'd rather discuss the real issue here that he's mentioning.]

Thought it said something, I just didn't... get it all the way. Something about taking what it was giving. It all seemed kinda unreal, and then I got back here with a real ass weapon and remembered dreams were real around here and I'd probably made some kind of agreement I didn't want to sign.

Edited 2019-09-24 02:16 (UTC)

I definitely didn't sign anything. In blood or otherwise.

[If he's entered a contract against his will, he's going to be very annoyed about it.]

I heard words. Just...I don't remember that being a thing before. I mean, I've never heard the water talking to me before. Not even when we were all swimming in the ocean for, what? Days?

[HEY SAME, SO IS SHE]

Pretty sure the talking thing is new. But it's also like...

[Beau twirls her wrist as she looks for the right word, finally seeming to get it and abruptly beginning to speak again.]

Like a beacon. What if that orb that blew up summoned it? It just took a while to actually, uh... get here. So now we can hear it.

Wait, that was an orb?

[Wash wasn't at the site of the...event...when it happened. And given that he was a scrambled, mildly amnestic mess for the week after, he didn't really get the full story right away, either. Or at all. As far as he knows, the effect that set them all off was just something that happened. Not something that was made to happen.]

Like, the ones we found in the ocean?

Oh, yeah.

[Shit, did that not get passed around? She had meant to talk about it, and... well, then it blew up, so.]

Looked just like it, but it was cracked to shit and humming. Thought it was probably because of the fire. Brought it back to the islets to mess with it and it blew a fucking hole in the wall.

[She might still have the pieces of it, for however much that matters.]

...are you sure we should be keeping those things with us?

[If they can break and cause...that?]

They're really not that harmless if they can do...you know, that. If it's fire that makes it do that, what happens if there's a fire here? Are we keeping these things somewhere safe?

[Beau, the girl who has three more of these in a chest in her home, needs to think about that. She does so for about one second.]

I mean, I thought it was fire, but like... the whole building was burned down? Had to have been there years. Hell, we found a bunch of them under a billion pounds of water pressure, probably pretty hard to do.

[Some kind of security might be better, though. Who knows what a determined god or magic person could use.]

Other ones made it through the other fire recently, but uh, I see your point.

You don't think someone intentionally...made it that way. Do you?

[Maybe a bit of a reach to jump to, but paranoia's the name of the game. Don't believe in coincidences. He once believed it was coincidence, on Chorus, but too many things didn't line up. Eventually, he was proven right in his misgivings; it wasn't sheer circumstance.]

[Who's to say the same can be said here?]

[She raises an eyebrow, looking at him curiously.]

Be good in water and get beat to shit in fire? Dunno.

[Beau pats around on her still damp body and retrieves a journal, wrapped in one of the sealed book sleeves from the library, flipping through.]

If the numbers are right, this place comes like... way after the underwater city. Like over a thousand years sort of deal.

It'd fit the current theme, don't you think?

[He holds up his newly acquired trident with a wry little shake. Then she pulls out a notebook, and he leans forward, curious.]

You're keeping track of dates?

Not well.

[She's got only a few, and had no context for them before that underwater voyage. Now she can at least put some of it in order.]

Library's got a couple things from that uhh, flower island. They started dating stuff from after something sinking, which I'm pretty sure is the underwater city down there. But the uhh, the orb, this time. Had some kind of memory when it burst about them helping out a plague colony.

[Beau scribbles three circles, putting a water droplet in one, a flower in the middle, and a scribble of flames in the last, then proceeds to draw sequential arrows between them. Once she's done, she speaks and draws together, using her pencil to illustrate her topics.]

If this place only existed in tandem with flower hell, these two have to be on the same time scale, and way ahead of this guy. Legion said there was a robot there that was like, two thousand years old, so how the hell old is that underwater place, y'know?

I remember the flowers.

[That was in one of the first few months of his coming here. The smell of rosemary filling his nostrils, and hell if he's ever going to be able to eat something with rosemary on it ever again. Not like he had much occasion to, even back home. It was ration squares and field stims, mostly.]

That island was...pretty old, I guess. I don't remember everything we found there, but some of it was pretty dated. The robots were definitely there for a while. There was only the one that was working.

I mean, I dunno if robots are old or whatever, but there were numbers on some of the documents. Not a lot, but some.

[She flips back in her book where a few things are transcribed; one column holds dates, labelled "AE 21", "AE 1012", and just the number "1889".]

So the 21 was on some kind of memorial etching, I think the uhhh, weed guy had it, from that island. 1012 was a book page in the library. And 1889 was what Legion said was the last date the robot mentioned. So if these guys here knew about that flower island... this' been going on for a long time.

The weed guy - never mind.

[He doesn't need specification there. There's only one weed guy he knows of, and he's pretty sure it's the same weed guy that everyone else knows. This island doesn't have a lot of weed guys.]

Makes sense. Everything on the island with the flowers, Umui, pointed to it being something long-established. The whole process was something people accepted was going to happen.

[To be fair, there's just one Weed Guy who reigns over all other possible Weed Guys that also happens to be a goddamn cryptid who would know things about flower island. She gave you all the clues, mr. policeman.]

So if that was going on, then like... when the hell did this happen, y'know? We don't even have a damn idea when it is now. There's just not enough.

[He's not a cop. Promise.]

And I'm pretty sure we can't just ask our resident rabbit. I've heard getting straight answers out of them is like pulling teeth. [Not that he's tried wasting his time in that particular area, yet.]

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