February Undercurrent: Behind the Curtain

[lifeaftr_mods]

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 )

Comments

[thankgods]

I have many. Most know me by the one you may have glimpsed as you entered this domain.

[The statue of a spider out behind the mana pool was more than purely decorative, shall we just say.]

[catpiper]

[She vaguely recalls seeing a name etched by the manapool and paid very little attention to it. It seems easier to just refer to them as Aridos' or Muffet's family.

Yes, that's way easier.]

Have you been up here this whole time? By yourself?

[thankgods]

No. And yes. Perhaps it is obvious, but I am not really here.

[catpiper]

[It's not obvious to her. This being is talking and that means they're nearby, if not directly next to her.]

Where you are? Are you alone somewhere else?

[thankgods]

[They speak gently, but simply - straightforward in their assertion.]

I am long gone, child. I am a shadow of what I was.

[catpiper]

[They're gone, but not a ghost. They're a memory, but they're not here and it's all an unspoken riddle she has no hope of solving. And above all-

It's sad.]

You're still here right now, so if your heart hurts, you can say that kind of thing. I'll try to hear it.

[thankgods]

Do not grieve the dead, child. Grieve the living. Grieve the choices they make that will decide your future.

[catpiper]

[That sounds incredibly ominous and she scans around the temple, looking for the source of the voice, even though they've said they're not here. She's determined, okay.]

What does that mean?

[thankgods]

[A small, pale shape scuttles along the contours of the temple. It is a spider, incredibly pale in color and larger than your average creature - but still quite small.]

Dead gods cannot hurt you.

It is the living that one must fear.

[catpiper]

[She barely notices the creature ambling along the walls-only catches its movement out of the corner of her eye before it appears and vanishes in the shadows. At least there's some kind of life here.]

It's okay. The living people here-they're very nice. I don't have to be afraid of them-you don't either.

[thankgods]

Of course not. The dead have little to fear from the living.

[catpiper]

[If they're really dead and if that little spider is the only life that remains here, then-]

Is there something making you very sad? Is that why you're a ghost?

[thankgods]

I am but a shade of what was, child. I cannot feel any particular way about anything.

[catpiper]

You can't? You don't feel anything at all?

[This not!spider ghost has a lot of problems that she can't solve, but-]

How come you're here?

[thankgods]

Because I am fate, and I am destiny. This is where I was always going to end up, and so it is where I am.

I am a memory of what was, and memories feel very little.

[catpiper]

Do you want to stay here? Do you want to come back to Enso with us? I can-

[She drops her nasty bag to the ground and digs out an oddly clean cat bento box with only a couple rocks inside.]

You can get in here, even if you're air-I'll carry you down.

[thankgods]

As I've said...I am not really here. I will inevitably fade away, no matter where I am.

[catpiper]

[Well, this solves very little then. They're gonna fade no matter what and she's not sure what to do with any of this. They don't feel emotion-they don't feel anything. They can't leave. They're a memory of something and-]

Okay, then I'll stay with you. Then you won't be alone when you fade away.

[thankgods]

I had thought you might.

That is very kind of you, though unnecessary.

I cannot feel much of anything, given my state.

[catpiper]

[They've said that time and time again, but she has a hard time believing it. There has to be something keeping them here-an emotionless god wouldn't be stuck to this place otherwise.]

It's okay. Even if you don't feel anything, I still want to stay, so I will.

[And she already has a feeling the answer is mostly Do what you want, but-]

Do you want to hear stories? I know a lot. I can talk for a long time.

[thankgods]

Whether or not I hear stories makes no difference to me, child.

Do you earnestly not seek answers to any questions you might have?

[catpiper]

You answered my questions. I asked 'Are you lonely?' and 'Are you sad?' and you said 'I can't feel that.' That's what I wanted to know.

[Unraveling the mysterious overarching plot?? No, she doesn't want to leave this place or figure out Enso's mysterious appearance. If she can stretch out her time here, she will. It doesn't even occur to her to ask something deeper.]

So it's okay. We can just stay together for awhile and I'll try to hear your heart and you can try to hear mine. That's what we can do.

[thankgods]

I do not have a heart, child. Even if I did, I doubt it is a thing that you could hear.

[catpiper]

Maybe other gods can hear your heart. The Storyteller is very good at doing that.

[thankgods]

Perhaps. But then, this is a story that they now have to write alone. I imagine the company of others must be a welcome thing for them.