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

[eudaimonikos]

We don't have killer anything. You can't die twice.

[So he's got one of the panels now, and...is the honey inside the combs? Michael starts trying to brush the bees away so he can investigate.]

Who does all the farming out here?

[vagabone]

[You know what, he'll let it go. Bees. Farming. Let's talk about those.]

I do what I can. Bees aren't my kind of thing, I don't have a clue what to do with them. Or who's looking after them.

[Pause.] Should you be touching them?

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, they're not stinging. Not like I'm trying to kill them or anything, right?

[It seems the calm confidence of someone who fears no bee is just what you need to keep them calm too! Well, that and it's the middle of the night, probably.]

I think there's honey in these.

[vagabone]

Does that... surprise you? Bees making honey?

[Man, he doesn't even want to know why if it does.]

[eudaimonikos]

Oh...no, no, I know they do that.

[Just never seen it before.

He pokes a finger through one of the wax-covered cells. Yeah, that's honey. Now it's on his hand. This was poorly thought-out...he snaps a jar into being with his other hand and holds it over that instead.]

We should have this around for all the tea.

[vagabone]

Sounds nice, I guess.

[He watches the sleepy bees buzz and crawl over each other. How to get it out more efficiently... what does he know, really. A spoon?] Probably full of vitamins or whatever, for all the fleshy types.

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, I don't understand any of that. Never really been relevant to anything before.

[Even if he gave a shit, dead humans don't really need that stuff. Of course, here on the islands, even Michael needs that stuff.

.....

Michael sticks his tongue into the beehive.]

[vagabone]

No! No, don't lick it! Eugh!

[Didn't see that coming. He grabs the demon's shirt and tries his damnedest to drag the guy away, outweighed three or four times over, most likely. It's a pretty feeble attempt.]

No licking anything other people are going to eat! It's not sanitary, ay, who knows what germs are growing in your mouth now? You're fleshy, remember?

[eudaimonikos]

I haven't put anything gross in my mouth!

[Michael looks vaguely affronted. It may not have occurred to him that germs are just spontaneously generating in his mouth now.]

[vagabone]

[What, did he use too many big words??]

Your mouth is the gross thing, Michael! No licking! Especially not food other people might eat!

[eudaimonikos]

Your mouth is a gross thing.

[rude!!!]

[vagabone]

No, it's not! I'm a skeleton, I don't even have spit or a tongue!

[So immature.] No more licking things! You realize you could get yourself sick that way too?

[eudaimonikos]

I don't get sick.

[oh, michael...]

[vagabone]

I bet you can now. And you will if you keep slobbering on things!

[Michael's the type to be incredibly whiny about it too, he can hear it already.]

[eudaimonikos]

Then I guess that means all this honey is mine.

[michael has attained: kindergartner logic]

[vagabone]

[Please please no. He gestures wildly in disbelief... and frustration, of course.]

No! Dios, aren't you like a million years old? It means you're going to get the flu or something! And you need to learn to share!

[eudaimonikos]

I was going to, before you started complaining.

[Not that this is exactly the greatest honey-gathering method in the first place, but he's just sort of winging all of this.]

And I've been around since the beginning of time. We all have.

[vagabone]

Fine, fine, put your tongue all over everything, I don't care. I was trying to help, so don't come crying to me when you catch some weird island plague.

[...although honestly, he'll probably be over it by then.]