lifeaftr | February Undercurrent: Behind the Curtain

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

Island of Stars
This is significantly less horrifying than he expected, considering the fact that he was dragged up here by a vine wound around his ankle.

It's dark, but not so dark that he can't see. (~~That thing had no problem with daylight, anyway.~~) The ground is dotted with pinpricks of light, but the gravel doesn't hurt to touch.

He doesn't recognize the turtle statue, but he goes over the name in his head, trying to remember. He needs to get the camera fixed. If not that, then he needs to get his hands on a notebook. There's too much going on here, and it's all too easy to forget.

It doesn't take long before Jay's found a bicycle, setting his still-dead camera in the basket. It's not locked. If somebody goes looking for it, he'll return it, but for the time being, he needs a way to get around. It's not like he hasn't stolen anything before. (Granted, he's more accustomed to stuffing sticks of beef jerky and packages of peanut butter crackers into the pockets of his sweatshirt than bike thievery, but there's a first time for everything.)

Now that he's got a way to get around, Jay's going to see what else there is to find on this island.

Island of Webs
Saying that this island is worse than the previous one might be an understatement.

Unfortunately, it's also caught his interest. This one's got signs of life, and while he doesn't recognize most of the buildings, he definitely knows the Storyteller's Temple.

It's clearly not the same place, though; it's too clean, not as overgrown. Could be that all temples look like this one. Could also be something worse.

The bicycle's gone, for now. Jay didn't trust any of the bridges he spotted leading off from the turtle island, so he removed the camera from the basket and tied his new bike in the sturdiest vines he could find, bracing himself against the marble curb lining one of the roads near the edge, and tried to inch the whole thing down to the ground.

It very nearly worked.

Unfortunately, the bike swung directly into a pale, white strand hanging off from another island, and the second they made contact, the white...something wound around the spokes, around the vines he so carefully tied around the frame, and started spreading towards the star-speckled island he was standing on.

Jay dropped the vine as quickly as he could and bolted.

He's still weighing whether or not it was a good idea to climb up to this island, with its abandoned buildings and its white silk and its giant spider statue. Either way, it's got his bike, and he'd like it back.

Jay can be found peering over the edge, attempting to spot it in the seething mass of web...vine...things, trying to figure out if the strands managed to bridge the gap between this island and the previous one.

He can also be found wandering the empty buildings, his dead camera in hand. He's quiet, for the most part, but every once in a while he'll let out a hesitant, "Anybody here?"

Yes and no. It depends on what you mean by "here."

[A soft, whispery voice, dry like the dragging of feet over dead leaves, and then just barely at Jay's eye-level, he might eventually spy it - a ghost-pale spider scuttling along one of the heavy strands of web.]

Jay hisses an inhale, jolting away from the voice. He's not accustomed to actually getting a response.

He peers through the gloom, and--shit, that's a big spider. Like an orb weaver, maybe worse. He stiffens again, backing away a few inches, not letting it out of his sight.

Wait. Wait.

That voice was coming from the spider.

Alright. Okay.

Talking rabbits. Talking spiders. Why not.

"I mean, you...look pretty 'here' to me." Not that he's exactly the best judge of that, nowadays. "Are you...?"

God, he wishes he had a working camera--or at least some way to record things. Memory's unreliable.

"...Osoru?" The word sticks in his mouth, unfamiliar.

The spider does not react outwardly to the reaction at all, but simply waits for Jay to venture his question before continuing. Their tone is placid and unconcerned, but the words remain soft and almost ethereal in quality.

"That I am. Or rather, a memory of who they were. Think of me more as a shadow, cast by the life I once lived."

Their voice fades in and out like a broken speaker, like a corrupted audio file. It's wrong, but familiar. He's accustomed to filling in the gaps.

~~Did he hear things in the static before? Was he rewired this way?~~

No. No. There's too much weird bullshit going on to let himself get distracted. He's talking to a spider. Focus on that. Focus on what they're saying, the bits he can hear and the bits he can't.

They're saying they're dead, maybe. Dead or not, this isn't whatever they used to be.

"Then, who's..?" He fidgets with the strap of his dead camera. Dead weight. Useless. Focus. "I mean, I'm...new here, so I don't exactly know how all this works, but, uh, d'you know whose..."

How does he say this without sounding like he's losing it?

"...like, 'memory' you're supposed to be? Like, I mean, d'you know what brought you back?"

"In a way, I did. I am a recollection of the one known as "Osoru," the god of fate and destiny and prophecy."

Don't think too hard about the implications of that, perhaps. It threatens a roundabout, Sisyphean bout of questioning that's only likely to get more confusing as one goes on. Very "chicken or the egg," and featuring some mild existential questions on top of it.

"My meeting you here was an inevitability. And so I am here."

Edited 2020-02-23 09:09 (UTC)

The answer's so straightforward--god of fate and destiny and prophecy, have to remember that--Jay very nearly misses the further implications of it.

Nearly.

"Wait, so...Wait." He kneads at his forehead. "You're saying you knew...like, you knew you were gonna be here." Here with him, but he doesn't want to think about that. "So even though you're...dead or something, you were still able to show up because...what, because it had to happen this way? How d'you know you're not just making it happen?"

Shut up.

But that could explain how he got here.

But it doesn't make any goddamn sense, so shut up.

"Because both presuppositions are correct."

The spider says simply, seemingly oblivious to whatever crisis these words may or may not be generating.

"I am here because I knew it would be so. I knew it would be so, and so I am here."

Try not to think too hard about this one, Jay. Some things are easier for godly entities to comprehend but don't necessarily make sense to the minds of mortals.

Goddammit.

And the literal talking spider says it so matter-of-factly, too. Of course they're here, Jay. Why wouldn't they be? Poor dear, he's just not bright enough to put it together.

So Jay takes a different approach.

"Wait, so if you know--knew--no, know the future, then do you just know...everything that's gonna happen, everywhere, or is it just, like, this island or something?" Jay snaps the blank viewfinder open and shut. "Like, could you tell me...I dunno, just as an example, like...my parents' phone number?"

Alas, but no dice, Mr. Merrick.

"You did not come from this world. Your fate in that context is beyond the realm of what one such as me can discern."

Though that may be more comforting than concerning; isn't it nice to know that, even when faced with a god of destiny, there are some pieces of your life that shall remain private even from them?

The response is both reassuring and unfathomably fucking frustrating.

Jay meets somebody with unnatural knowledge, a literal god by the rules of this place, as far as he can tell, and they can't say what happened to Jessica. They can't say what happened to Alex. They can't tell him a damn thing that matters.

Well, maybe not.

"O-okay, fine--" He can hear his voice hiking up higher, irritated. "--Then how about this context? If you know what's gonna happen, then..." Then what? What can he even ask? He just got here; he's barely got his bearings. "Is Tim...Are..."

~~Are they gonna be alright? Are they gonna get out of this alive?~~

"Is there anything Tim and I ought to watch out for?"

"That rather depends on what it is you are looking for."

Again, perhaps not a very satisfying answer...but in fairness, Mr. Merrick, that question was exceptionally vague. Perhaps you ought to have expected this.

"Is it survival you seek? Or is it answers? The two seldom if ever overlap in earnest, though perhaps if you play your hand well, they may intersect."

"If I play my hand--!" It's probably not a great idea to get pissed off at somebody calling themself a god. He tries to steady himself, but he doesn't do the greatest job of it.

"How am I--how're any of us supposed to stay alive if we don't know what's going on?" Easy. Easy, you idiot. You've got no idea what this spider's capable of.

"I mean--" Breathe. "Look. I just got here. All I know about what's going on's what people've told me and what the Storyteller's told me. And back where Tim and I came from, floating islands and talking spiders aren't even on the list of possibilities. So I guess..."

Specific. He's got to be more specific.

"With what you know about what's gonna happen, d'you think it's safer to believe...well, at least make like we believe what the Storyteller's telling us, or are we better off not trusting them?"

The spider does not react very strongly to the outburst. In fact, they do not react very much at all. They simply wait for the next question.

"You are asking of me something that is unique to your perception of the world. I can no sooner counsel you on the trust of gods than you can counsel me on the intertwinings of destiny and fate. Our perspectives do not suit one another."

Face it, Jay - your understanding of the world simply doesn't align with this shadowy remnant of a god that once was.

"I am aware of infinite possibilities in what may occur. I see very many outcomes. I know that they all happen, in certain variations of reality. I do not know which will occur in this version. Do you understand?"

Oh. Oh.

Jay's still breathing hard, but he tamps it down. He closes his eyes, kneading at his forehead. It stings. He's pushing too hard on it, digging at the skin, but he doesn't stop.

They don't know what happens, exactly. They know what can happen--or, rather, they know what does happen, but they also know what happens in every other timeline. This is only one timeline out of--what, thousands? Millions? An infinite number?

Trillions of Jays, all screwing up this conversation in different ways. Trillions of spiders, shutting him down, evading his questions.

Assuming that they're not lying. Assuming Osoru knows anything at all. Assuming this is actually the Osoru from the statue and not some other flavor of magical bullshit, making him think he's talking to an omniscient spider.

Nearly omniscient. Not omniscient enough to be any help.

"Okay." He can deal with this. He can deal with cryptic. He doesn't like it, but he's been sucking it up and dealing with it for years. Jay opens his eyes. His forehead feels like it might be bruised. "Then if you can't, like, tell me anything that happened to me, then...can you...tell me what happened to you? In this timeline, I mean."

"I died. Rather a long time ago, really...depending on one's perspective. Time is a fickle god."

It's an answer uttered with absolute simplicity. If it bothers Osoru to speak of their apparent death, it does not seem to bother them very much...or at all. They speak with the same measured, faded tone as ever.

"I perished when this world did. I saw that fate, and accepted it."

This is something. This is something he hasn't heard, even with Tim being more forthcoming than he's used to. Even with the other island residents he's managed to exchange a few words with.

"Wait, you're saying--" He takes a second, pulls his thoughts together. "This world's dead. Like, this entire world, not just this island, right?"

"Yes. The world ended long, long before now. You are living on its remnants. Its memories."

Again, no shift in tone whatsoever. It's calm and stated with the utmost frankness. This is, of course, not the least bit surprising to Osoru. They're beyond surprise. When you are the god of fate and destiny, perhaps surprise simply doesn't come very easily at all.

Jay breathes in, thin and thready.

He just got here, with nothing but a broken camera and the contents of his pockets, and the world's already ended. Osoru is just memories. This whole place is just memories.

Bit ironic, when you think of it that way.

"What about us?" It feels strange asking. He's real. He knows for certain he's real. ~~Right?~~ "I mean, how're people supposed to live here if this place isn't, like--"

He doesn't have the words for it.

"If it's all just...memories, or whatever?"

Jay's panic doesn't seem to have any effect on Osoru whatsoever. They're hardly a very reactive figment, however. Reading into the emotions of a spider may very well be difficult, even when they aren't ghostly-pale and not quite there.

"We are gods. Memories, coming from us, are powerful things. But they will not last forever, and nor will this world. When it falls to pieces, you will have to decide what comes of it."

So, you know. No pressure.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

February Undercurrent: Behind the Curtain

OTA | NPCs extremely welcome!

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multi-thread topical drifting

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2/2 dw wouldn't let me fit the entire tag in one comment rip

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