November Undercurrent: And We Give Thanks

[lifeaftr_mods]

NOVEMBER UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: Have you told someone you loved them yet?
When: November 3rd to November 20th
Where: Everywhere!
Warnings: Nothing of note; please mark if anything comes up!

Take Me Back to the Reasons Why
The Water wishes to demonstrate their power to you, as well as just what they mean, when they suggest that they require your cooperation. They are going to bring back the harvest island of Nuidan, a generally fondly remembered island that explorers have encountered in the past. What's more, they're going to require your help to do it.

Starting November 3rd, characters will discover a simple strip of dark leather among their belongings, meant to be worn around the neck or wrist. They can disregard it, of course, but if they attempt to discard or destroy it, it will always find its way back to them, no matter how improbable this might seem. How strange...

Perhaps even stranger is the sudden appearance of a smooth slab of stone, half-submerged in the waters just off of Ensō's coast. It's an altar, and around its edges are a series of deep notches, as though something is meant to be inserted into them. In its center is a pool of water, though it curiously doesn't seem to reflect anything.

The purpose of this will only really become obvious once the month goes on. Characters will find themselves to compelled to be honest with the people around them as to why they care, why they appreciate them as people, or what they like most about them. This compulsion can vary wildly and at the player's discretion, from a gentle mental pressure to an unstoppable force, and anything in between!

The bottom line is that every time one admits to some feeling of gratitude, no matter how small or big, their little plait of leather will receive a crystal from the interaction. All crystals will be roughly the same shape, but they may vary in color, pattern, and texture. Some might be simple sticks of quartz, while others might be comprised of myriad, ever-changing swirls of color. Again, the only limit here is your imagination. Now the presence of that strange, altar-shaped stone in the water might make a bit more sense. Those notches in its sides are the perfect size and shape to fit a crystal smoothly into any one of them. The more grateful interactions one has with others, the more crystals they will gather, and the more they can fit into the altar. As more crystals are fed to the altar, it will start to glow. The pool of water at the altar's top will start to reflect the likeness island of Nuidan in increasing clarity, as though one is peering at its likeness in a snowglobe. What's more is that the number of crystals in the altar will very obviously affect Nuidan's state: very few crystals will make the island look as though it is mostly wilderness only a handful of structures in dire need of repair, while a great deal of crystals will cause the island to look as though it is thriving, in full bloom, and in more need of harvest than maintenance.

But, ultimately, the state in which Nuidan returns to you is up to you...and how far you're willing to go to express a little gratitude. Don't worry if you don't know anyone, either - this marks a great opportunity to start doing nice things for people, even if you don't know them! You've got most of the month to get to know each other, after all.

Don't think you can get away with heaping compliments on your closest friends and companions, however; variety is the name of the game here. While you can collect all sorts of crystals for personal use from repeat interactions, you can only feed one crystal to the altar per person. That is to say, Character A can be as grateful to Character B as they like, but only one crystal from each character can be delivered to the altar. If they want to procure more for the altar's purposes, Character A will have to have a positive interaction with Character C, and so on.

Take Me Back to That Big Sky

Of course, there's a lot going on in the background as well. You're free to use this log as a catch-all for the duration of November's Undercurrent Event, as well as the other minor events listed on our Monthly Rundown post. You are very, very free to let your dreams about creepers and baby lorbies become reality, and you are always free to create your own individual logs and posts as needed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them over on our Monthly Rundown post!

November Timeline

[ ♆ ] November 3rd: "And We Give Thanks" begins and lasts until November 20th
[ ♆ ] November 4th: "Aw, Man" begins and lasts until November 12th
[ ♆ ] November 11th: "The Lorblings" begins and lasts until November 25th
[ ♆ ] November 20th: Nuidan returns to the archipelago
[ ♆ ] November 21st: "Return to Your Roots" begins and lasts until November 30th

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

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[lesbeau]

[Beau doesn't know exactly what to make of feeling feelings that aren't hers. It's not like she hasn't been trying to do better with being truthful and everything, but it's been a slow process and Beau is nothing if not petty. It only matters if it's her choice- the fact that this feels forced is putting her on a slightly surly edge. But she still wants to be vaguely around people, so she figures she'll wander close, get her fix, and then go do whatever she wants.

But y'know, Drifter's good company, and certainly not the worst to sit out a situation like this in. So she wanders over to where she's found them sitting with a very vague wave.]

You doing flower crowns? Kinda surprised we haven't seen that yet, but uuuh, I also showed up right after that flower plague so.

[wonderful.]

[hyperlit]

[The flower plague. Yes. The Drifter lowers their head very slightly at the mention of it, in solemn acknowledgment of that tumultuous event.]

a shame
such a beautiful thing would be made so dark

[lesbeau]

[She takes a seat near to them, not quite next to but with their knees close to touching as her legs cross.]

Yeah, kinda glad that one's just a story to me. 'Ss much as anything is 'just' a story anywhere.

[Beau's eyes fall to the crown though, and-- it's one part some kind of weird pull towards her own promises of honesty, and one part something this place is doing, but she speaks.]

It's nice you're taking it back. Y'know, saying you're gonna enjoy it no matter what someone says. That's hardcore.

[hyperlit]

[They remember it too well. Lavender, and the smell of it, the way the purple blooms had been thick with their blood, the ichor that dyed those petals pink and spilled out every time they doubled over to cough.]

[They had saved themself, once, from a sickness that was ravaging them. A pity they could not do the same more than once.]

[They're focusing on all the wrong things. The Drifter looks up to her, tilts their head slightly to one side.]

would like to make one?

[lesbeau]

[She got lucky in that hers could be a forgotten dream, but it helps to be prepared. The smell doesn't plague her, the pain faded into the background of other hurts she's had through all sorts of things, not enough to win over the feeling of things like holding a lightning rod or delving into lava.

But right now, Beau just sits down across from them, legs folded.]

Don't really know how. Never done something like this before. Is it just a, uh... like a basket?

[hyperlit]

like a rope

[It is a rather simple maneuver. The most difficult part is not breaking the delicate stems and leaves and petals - weaving flowers together makes for much more delicate material than it would rope or any other standard weave.]

or a chain

[lesbeau]

[Beau knows what the idea there is in theory, at least. Or rather, she knows what a twisting of rope looks like, but not necessarily having the practice to know the motions.]

Uhhh, sure, yeah. You just sorta... braid? Is it a braid?

[Okay maybe she should actually watch the Drifter's hands, the delicate way they move. It's graceful in the way she's seen monk movements explained, even if her experience is much more focused on the pain.]

... You're really good at it.

[hyperlit]

a braid

[Yes, they realize after a moment of consideration, it is a sort of braid. Their eyes crinkle slightly at the corners at her compliment, pinching into crescents.]

have had practice
much practice

[lesbeau]

[Oh, that's cute. They're really cute. Goddamn.]

You used to do this a lot?

[She will quietly reach over and pick up a few flowers, noting the lengths of the stems, trying to see how she could start weaving this in without otherwise tying them together.]

Was there a point to it? Where you came from. Or just like, the same as it is now, or whatever.

[hyperlit]

no
learned here

[They didn't used to do...this. Just sit and let things happen to them. They learned patience in small pieces, in mere granules, in tiny steps, until gradually they had to learn it in larger sweeps. But this was one of those first, small steps.]

was taught

[lesbeau]

[In a certain sense, sitting and letting things happen to her was most of her life. Even after the monks took her, it was all about menial tasks that lead one thing to another. She never cared. It's hard to care about them now.

But the Drifter looks so at peace there, she can't help but wonder about the sensation.]

Oh. Well. Good job for picking up some new stuff here.

[Beau peers over to their weave system, trying to study the pattern as their fingers twist.]

[hyperlit]

[The Drifter slows down, holding out their work as they progress.]

ren knows how

[She taught them a lot of things, by necessity. They did not have it in them to stop and wait for any one thing, but because she was a child, because she could not be rushed, because they had to take caution around her, they were more or less forced to function...on her level, in a way.]

[This was one of the ways they did that.]

[lesbeau]

Huh. Makes sense I guess.

[Ren is just... kind of like that, even if it does suddenly make the fact that she isn't doing it all the time kind of sad. She hopes they never go back to that goddamn flower island, and if they do, she's lighting it on fire.

But now isn't the time for that. Now is for starting to get the pattern, twisting stems one-two-over-under until it starts to resemble something similar.]

You know a lot of stuff too, though. Taught me like... a ton, out here. That's your knowledge now as much as it's hers.

[hyperlit]

[That is...an interesting way of putting it. It's also apparent that it's not something they've thought about. They blink, look down at the blossoms in their hands. It doesn't feel like it belongs to them, this knowledge - but they have it, and they're passing it along, so perhaps it is theirs, in a way.]

you teach too

[They have learned plenty from her, as well.]

[lesbeau]

Like what, how to fall off a dragon?

[She can't resist the quip, the immediate and innate response to put herself down and shove her accomplishments under the rug. But also, what has she showed them that wasn't pain? Impaling them both on a sword? Twisting their arm to eat honey? She figures they'd be just fine without her.]

I dunno. Most people tend to use me as a bad example in any teaching anything.

[hyperlit]

how to work together

[How to trust implicitly in the heat of a conflict so immense that one cannot second guess whether it is a wise thing to take a fellow soldier's hand, but can only do it and have faith that it will proceed to an agreeable end result. That sort of faith - that is not something that comes naturally to a creature who is used to fighting most of their battles alone.]

[But they've never really been alone here, have they?]

[Not really.]

[lesbeau]

[That... actually kind of takes her by surprise. It's not something she would have said about herself at the start of her journey, where she was always looking over her shoulder to see what would go next. But the thing about Beau is that when she needed help, it always came. Something worked out if she liked it or not. So she just... did.

Hearing it as some kind of good thing just feels foreign, but Beau knows they're not wrong.]

Oh. Uh. Glad it helped. You shouldn't have to do everything alone if you don't have to.

[She pauses, just a moment, before muttering a finisher--]

'Sides, you.. didn't have to come get me. But you did. So.

[hyperlit]

do not leave allies behind

[That's just common sense, after all. They've had allies before, but the very first one that they can ever recall having - the first one that was not a god, in any case - did not have support, and so they died in the rain, succumbing to illness and injury, alone but for their silent fellow drifter.]

[They don't intend to allow the same failure to occur again. Not again.]

proud to fight beside you

[lesbeau]

[The edge of her mouth ticks to the side, a little grin of something that feels more genuine than she can explain.]

Yeah, well. Wouldn't take you along to do crazy stuff if you weren't really good at it. So I am too.

[They can watch her six anytime-- besides, they've already technically stabbed her in the back, so there isn't really a "down" to go from here.]

[hyperlit]

thank you

[The gratitude is sincere, even if it is a little awkward. They're unused to these sorts of expressions, both in receiving and in delivering them.]

nature of the battle
requires a little

[What's the word she used?]

"crazy"

[lesbeau]

[She laughs, almost moving to slap them on the back and then rapidly backpeadaling on that. Right, she needs to not slap them into unconsciousness. They can still have a hearty shoulder pat while she makes sure she isn't dealing a d8 of damage on accident.]

There we go! Just keep swingin', you're good.

[Beau returns to weaving the crown, but doesn't exactly stop talking.]

Hey, could you handle being thrown somewhere if we did it right? Once chucked our rogue into destroying a guy, wondering if you'd be down.

[hyperlit]

[They tense very slightly, but do not refuse the contact. She knows to take better care than most. And, even if it's yet another reminder of their vulnerability, that around them certain punches must be pulled, that they cannot take the brunt of certain actions the ways others can, the twinge of frustration is smaller than it would be.]

[Besides, this question is one worth considering. The Drifter's eyes narrow very slightly.]

possibly
would depend on circumstance

[lesbeau]

[Sorry, Drifter. She's trying to remember they're quite contact averse, she's just very touchy. At least she figured out how to pull her punches in a situation where they got a few more tries at the whole "life" thing. The answer excites her though, and her eyebrows climb as she gets to start actually thinking about this.]

Usually it's a way to get across somewhere faster, like-- there's a big enemy coming, so you get tossed and then you can put a sword in their face.

[Actually wait, here's a question...]

Can you do flips and stuff? I know you're really fast but I don't usually see you getting really parkour out there.

[hyperlit]

[Hmm. The Drifter considers that for a moment before eventually deciding on the most honest response.]

have not tried

[No, wait - that's not the case. They have tried in some circumstances, but those have been few and far between. Not anything as fancy or superfluous as flips and somersaults, perhaps, but they have occasionally engaged in more unconventional means of self-transport.]

cross gaps
scale inclines
could try

[lesbeau]

[That honestly feels weirder than the alternative, and she tilts her head as she thinks.]

Well, yeah, but if you're working with speed you wanna use that. Charging right at something is good, but you're harder to hit if you leap up and spin kick them in the face. Don't you use like, velocity when you hit stuff? Stop me if I'm wrong, just like, thinking out loud here.