lifeaftr | February Undercurrent: Behind the Curtain

FEBRUARY UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: A sea of clouds in the moonlight...
When: February 3rd to February 15th
Where: The Floating Islands above Ensō
Warnings: Please mark anything as it comes up!

The Earth is Spinning

Far above all your heads, suspended impossibly over Ensō, there is a scattered collection of strange floating islands. Almost two years ago, adventurers had the opportunity to visit them when the heat of the phoenix-sun of LifeAftr burned away the clouds that shielded them. This time, it will be Water that gusts those clouds to the side - clouds are, after all, a form of water. Once more, these islands will become accessible. Just like before, all islands are accessible via mana pool - but those of you capable of flight will be able to reach them without needing those helping hands.

Additionally, the islands will be hanging very low over Ensō, casting noticeable shadows over much of the landmass, and parts of them will be trailing to the ground. Ladders, long tresses of ivy and vines, and ropes hang off the edges of these islands to brush against Ensō's floor, to make for easy climbing. You might also find that some of these trailing protrusions might take a more...active approach. If someone walks by, you might very well find yourself grabbed by these vines or ladders and more or less hoisted up to the floating islands, whether that was your intention or not. It's almost like they want you up there, for whatever reason.

This time, these islands will not be subject to the whims and desires of the islanders. The landscape will not shift to accommodate your memories and thoughts. This time, when travelers reach the islands, they will find that they have formed into four distinct locations. Each of the four islands are separate and more or less their own small patch of land, visible but quite isolated from all the rest.

Just like before, the mana pools will be more than slightly glitchy for the duration of this event - it is entirely possible that someone simply attempting to travel by them, or stay near them to rejuvenate their energies will find themselves whisked up into the landmasses hovering in the sky. It seems that these islands have an inherent effect on the mana pool network.

The Water will communicate to all adventurers in whatever way possible that they are strongly advised to visit the islands above, if they seek answers. Those who pass near bodies of water on any island will likely hear the Water's quiet urging to do just that. Though even if they don't listen, there's every chance that they might end up there anyway!

So what are the islands up here like, this go around? Funny you should ask...

The Island of Stone This first island is the biggest of the five, and also the most central. It is the one you are most likely to end up upon if you travel here by accident. Much of it is comprised of a terrain of earth and stone. The upper clouds frequently gust through the area, lending it a strange and otherworldly look.

Immediately behind the mana pool, travelers will see a large carving mounted on a stone dais. It appears to be in the shape of a bear, carved from oak wood. Its eyes are set with a pair of emeralds. Below it is written a name: ZEMJIN.

On this island, travelers will find what essentially amounts of a great deal of building blocks. Almost all of them are different types of earth and rock - from sandstone to fired clay to granite to obsidian to even some of your less common materials, such as iron or titanium or gold - and a great variety of sizes and shapes.

Each of these blocks defy ordinary size and weight restraints; as long as they remain on the island, virtually anyone can pick them up and move them around as you please, regardless of how much you should be capable of lifting. You can build tall structures of diamond or small huts from marble - the only limit is your imagination!

Well, that and reason. If any of your building materials fall off the island, they'll almost immediately dissipate into nothingness. However, there's nothing stopping you from building a bridge to another island...and that'd work, too.

The Island of Color This island is one of the most striking, as once one sets foot on it, they will note that it's almost entirely devoid of color. At least, all the solid parts of it are. The island hosts broad boulders, grassy meadows, beautiful trees...but they're all in shades of gray and white, save for the spot just behind the mana pool.

There, travelers will see a small statue mounted on a stone dais. It appears to be in the shape of a seal, a delicate shape made from expertly carved and polished sunstone. All around it, bright golden marigold flowers are in full bloom. Below it is written a name: JARUSKA.

Further inspection reveals that the island isn't entirely colorless. In fact, all over the island, one can find deep wells that look as though they might contain water. Instead, they contain color, in every shade imaginable. One simply has to lower the bucket into the well, concentrating on the color they'd like to see, and when hoisting it up, they'll find it filled to the brim with it. The wells are lined with buckets and primitive, oddly skeletal tools with which one can use to decorate this island to their heart's desire.

Fill in the empty outlines! Use inks and powders to breathe new life into this monochrome land! The entire space is your blank canvas, and you don't even have to indulge in conventionality - you can very well make the grass pink and the trees blue if you like.

The only real drawback is the capacity of these colors to stain. They're rather inconveniently bright and tend to glow, and only sustained scrubbing will remove them. The color tends to bleed into whatever you touch, if you don't do a thorough enough job of washing all that away, even if you depart this place.

What's more? You can use these colors to paint new structures into place. You can paint new trees, new flowers, new anything of any color you like. Such as, say...a bridge to another island.

The Island of Stars This island is among the most striking, and will probably be quite visible from a distance. Once one sets foot upon it, it'll be obvious why: the landscape here looks like an inverted night sky. The ground is a deep, swirled pool of blues and purples and blacks, stippled with bright pinpricks. It looks very much like you're standing on the night sky itself.

Immediately behind the mana pool, travelers will see a small statue mounted on a stone dais. It is in the shape of a turtle, an artfully crafted likeness made from the deep indigo blue of polished iolite. Thready blooms of red-and-green tillandsia sprout about it in colorful abandon. Below it is written a name: TSAMAYAR.

All around this island, twisting pathways, roads, and tunnels unravel in and around the starry landscape. Some are simplistic, and look like they are made of ordinary (if strangely celestial) gravel. Others are made of dark, paved stone. Still others look a little like they're cobbled with fancier materials, such as polished obsidian or marble.

And all over, you'll be able to find a vast collection of rather primitive but nonetheless fully functional bicycles, scooters, skateboards, and other forms of self-powered travel. And unlike any of the other islands, if you manage to get these vehicles off the island somehow, and back to Ensō fully intact? You can keep them.

It's no Rainbow Road, but it can make for a beautiful place to ride a bike, take a load off, and simply take in the sights. And, at some point, you might realize that you recognize some of the stars set into the ground. Maybe some of them are constellations you know. And what could that mean, exactly...?

The Island of Webs The final island is the most mysterious, and potentially the most off-putting. It's thick with mist and fog, and almost everything is dead and black, as though all of its color has been sapped away. Only this place doesn't have any colorful pools of ink and dyes to bring luster and life back to its scenery; it is simply bereft.

Immediately behind the mana pool, travelers will see a small statue mounted on a stone dais. It appears to be in the delicate likeness of a spider that has been carved from the rainbow blue-greens of labradorite. All around the statue, heavy twines of ivy have climbed up along the dais and threaded around the spider's legs. Below it is written a name: OSORU.

The most obvious and probably unnerving aspect of this island are the thick webs that hang from almost every surface. Almost everything is draped in limp, dead trailings of a whitish material that seems almost silklike. It isn't sticky; travelers can touch and handle it easily, to no ill effect. More unsettling is likely to be the buildings that can be found on this place - for they are all almost certainly ones that many of you will recognize.

The Storyteller's Temple. Chunks of the city of Ai'tuoh. A windmill from Nuidan. Parts of the sunken city of Tempide, and so many others. All structures that were found in LifeAftr in varying stages of ruin - now in pristine condition. They look as neat and tidy as if they were just constructed, though all are empty.

Perhaps even worse is the fact that those weblike strands seem to have a life of their own. As the days progress, they start to slither toward the island's very edge, straining to try and reach the other islands. You can help them, if you wish, by building or painting bridges between those islands and this one. Because, as it happens, this appears to be what this place wants more than anything - to draw all these separate pieces together, into one cohesive whole.

If you wish to fully uncover the secrets of this island, please let us know if you are interested in NPC interaction in the subject line of your top-level.

Your Eyes are Shining in the Glittering Light

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 February's Undercurrent Event, as well as any of the other minor events listed on our Monthly Rundown post. And, of course, 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 the Questions header on our Monthly Rundown post!

February Timeline

[ ♆ ] February 1st: "Free Real Estate" begins and lasts until February 5th
[ ♆ ] February 3rd: "Behind the Curtain" begins and lasts until February 15th
[ ♆ ] February 6th: "No Yan is an Island" begins and lasts until February 12th
[ ♆ ] February 13th: "A Rainbow, Not a Painbow" begins and lasts until February 29th
[ ♆ ] February 16th: "The Sound Resounds" begins and lasts until February 27th

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(He's hard to miss through the drab colours that the rolling rain brings: a white little beacon sitting with wings spread wide, back perfectly straight. It feels like an... omen, of some kind. Yasha's heartbeat skips at the sight of him, a quick break through the calm beat of raindrops dripping a soothing tattoo against her skin.

It takes her a while to approach him, but eventually her curiousity wins out over the awe of him. She comes to him front on, and though she's loathe to interrupt him, she simply has to say:)

... You're an aasimar.

(She hasn't seen another in so long.)

[ He's well distracted, minding his own business and settled to just relax during this little break. He knows of the soothing properties of this rain, so he figures he should stay out here for too long, but a magical recharge would be quite useful so that he may get back to work.

But, then, a figure approaches and he snaps out of his train of thought, though he doesn't quite move. The angel just looks confused, and tries not to focus on how awkward it still feels for people to see his wings. ]

--Pardon?

Um, (Yasha says, registering his expression of confusion and immediately regretting bothering him at all,) you're... an aasimar.

(And she gestures toward her shoulders, mimicking the splay of wings. He must be a protector, judging by the white feathers, the brilliance of their sheen. That's why the sight of his wings are so calming to her. It's clear that he has imbibed the powers of good; she immediately hopes that he doesn't ask her about her own celestial guide.)

It's been a long time since I've run into another, so...

[ Aziraphale continues to stare, hesitating to respond at first. He does wonder, for a moment, if that's a word for 'angel' in some other language that he may not know or remember, but, then again, with the variety of people in these islands, it might be something else entirely.

She wouldn't be totally wrong, though, about him being a protector. That's what principalities are, and he's done some fair share of that, but he wouldn't really use that word for himself, quite honestly.

He's very polite when he does speak. ]

I'm sorry, I...you might have me confused for someone else. Er, something else.

... Oh.

(The dismissal- however polite- doesn't really make sense to Yasha. She stands there for a moment in total silence, obvious in her bewilderment, then opens her mouth again tentatively.)

But your wings look– like mine used to.

What are you, if you aren't an aasimar?

[ She has— had wings? That piece of information only further confuses him, but certainly gets his attention.]

An angel. [ He answers more easily than he thought he would. It’s not the rain, however - there’s just no point in hiding it here.]

I’m afraid I’ve never heard of...”aasimar”, was it?

Oh.

(Yasha's expression shifts into something more exasperated. People have called her 'angel' before, but never in a very nice way. Comes with the territory, unfortunately.)

It's... I am an aasimar. We look human, but we are not quite. Is that what 'angel' means where you come from?

[ It’s okay, they’ll get to a point of understanding. Probably. Hopefully. He’s heard the word a myriad of ways, depending on who it came from, but, then again, it’s just what he is.]

Ah.

Hum, well. [ How does he even put this? It’s surprisingly difficult to explain some concepts when the possibility of someone being from some place that’s in no way like Earth. ]

I can assure you I am not human either. This corporation is something we keep so that we may blend in with them. [ And he is currently a lot more binded with it than he used to be, but he won’t get into that now. The implication of ‘this is me but not really’ is there.]

(An implication that Yasha catches. It makes her glance over him for a second time, though her gaze does, once again, linger on the wings at his back.)

I see.

(Perhaps they are more similar than they realise. The presence of the wings does want her to recognise a kind of kinship between the two of them, but Yasha is trying not to lean too much into the feeling.)

I'm sorry, for assuming things. I... I was excited.

[ He's open to the option, if she tries. Can't say he's exactly seen or experienced that kindship with a lot of his kind, but...well, then there's Crowley. ]

Oh, my dear girl, that's absolutely fine. [ He feels that she's disappointed, somehow. ]

I do apologize for any confusion. I don't tend to, well, hold this form [ Specifically, the wings, with he moves slightly, still holding them above his head for shelter from the rain. ] very often, but...

[ Ahem. ]

Perhaps we should get out from under this rain. I believe I've been here for far too long.

But we can continue the conversation somewhere else, if you'd like.

(He's very... sincere. That's the main takeaway from this conversation. Yasha likes him, likes that he makes her feel very calm and a little bit closer to home.)

It's okay.

I've met a lot of people from a lot of different places here, and everybody is so different. I suppose eventually I would have to meet somebody more similar.

(He's right, about the rain. Yasha wasn't paying much attention to it until he points it out, and then she realises that she's soaked through, her hair plastered wetly to her cheeks, drops falling from her eyelashes every time she blinks. She isn't bothered by it, though. It's a very calming experience.)

Sure. What's... your name?

[ This rain is one of the very few things these islands have brought that doesn't entirely make him nervous - regardless of its overly soothing abilities -, but he does wonder if the effect may be a little bit too strong if they stay out here too long. Besides, he's starting to get cold and his wings are soaked.

He stands, straightening himself out. ]

Aziraphale. Lovely to meet you.

And yours?

(His name is intricate, and it suits him.)

Yasha. It's good to meet you too. (Even if the meeting didn't go how she wished it might have. She too notices that his wings are soaked in much the same way that her hair is, and it gives her a little start.)

I should let you go, I– I'm sorry, for taking up your time. You probably want to head inside.

[ He looks confused at her sudden change of tone, not really understanding. ]

Oh, well, I was heading back to the library anyway. Thinking about stopping by Denny first.

I think I've rather lost track of time out here. [ Which isn't on her - this rain does things. ]

February Undercurrent: Behind the Curtain

V, ignore pun

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