lifeaftr | August Intro: These Days Are Feeling Dark

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August Intro: These Days Are Feeling Dark

INTRO LOG: AUGUST

Who: New arrivals, and you!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: August 4th and onward
Where: Primarily Nastrandir
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Our lucky new adventurers join the archipelago on a new chapter of our journey, with the new island of Nastrandir playing host to their arrival. With the events of last month leaving many questions in those more settled in LifeAftr, all will find they soon have…other things to think about.

New arrivals may awake at either of the locations listed below. Or they may wander!

A4: Show Me Distraction
In comparison to the warm welcome characters experienced on Io, the land of Nastrindir is not at all promising. The strip of coast hosting the mana pool is a scoop of rock and cliff, and rather unforgiving. To the east, however, it looks as though nearby wetlands leave the horizon lost in a foggy haze. The mana pool is generally a comforting, reliable constant on any island...generally. There looks to be something wrong with this one. The rocks surrounding it are blackened, various spots across their surface almost glass-like under the summer sun. After a brief inspection, most will probably gather that the pool has been set on fire in times past.

More annoying still is the tampering that's occured within the pool. The pool is partially obstructed, due to a blockage of tumbled rocks and boulders that seem to have fallen from the surrounding rocky landscape and toppled into the raised plinth. The choking of the mana water will make return trips to Ensō…inconvenient, to say the least. The rocks are an annoyance that will need to be removed before anyone will be travelling anywhere.

Also of note are the old statues that stand at opposing sides of the mana pool. In their prime, they may have towered a good fifteen or twenty feet tall. Now, however, one has been tipped onto its side, and there are large, crumbled chunks taken out of the other. Both look blackened, much like the mana pool, as though they were also set on fire at some point in their history. Whatever they may have meant to depict has been lost to time...but the parts of them that have survived look to represent smooth, rounded coils of something or another.

It might feel, to the particularly wary or those prone to paranoia, like these statues are watching you. Like they're representative of something else that might have its eye on you, even now.

Or they might not! It could be all in your head. What's way more important is the local flora in the vicinity. The parts of the land that have soil are currently host to some delightful plants that are known, colloquially, as candyplants. And, yes - they're exactly what they sound like.

Candyplants are odd plants that are not unlike a melon vine, except that their fruits take the form of giant candies. The candyfruit is quite edible, though much higher in sugar content than your more bog standard varieties of fruits and vegetables. The variation in the shapes and sizes and flavors is tremendous - some are shaped like fruit, and will have a very similar taste to the fruit they represent. The only exceptions are the ones that look rather like overgrown candy corn, which taste like...marshmallows, for some reason. But they still taste sweet, and they're still full of some of the nutrients you'd expect to find in ordinary fruit!

While candyplants are somewhat less sugary than their real candy equivalents, it's still not recommended that you gorge on them overmuch. They're probably pretty bad for your teeth, if you have any. Candyplants do keep for quite some time, though - particularly if dried, packed in jars, or otherwise preserved.

Candyplants grow in temperate areas near quantities of fresh water - which Nastrandir has in abundance. Most of them grow in shaded, open areas along the ground, like melons; plants that bear smaller candyfruits may instead behave like grapes and other climbing vines, especially when they would be otherwise crowded out by other ground plants. The plants and fruits are quite harmless, though the sweet, sugary smell that tends to linger around areas of rampant growth during hot weather can cause one hell of migraine.

B4: Snakes Are Biting at My Heels
Those who arrive a little ways away from the mana pool or find themselves daring enough to start exploring will end up on the B4 square, which is closer to the swampy environment more characteristic of Nastrandir's inland. The further east one progresses, the wetter and softer the ground underfoot will get, until you're slogging thigh-deep in freshwater algae and muck. It's pretty dirty work, but it's probably more advisable that you go roaming into the wetlands rather than sticking around in the rockier regions. - especially because those regions happen to be occupied.

That feeling of paranoia that may or may not have settled on the back of your neck on A4 will turn out to be justified. Flickers of motion in the corner of your eye, the sensation of something watching you, the clattering of pebbles and rocks sliding down the sloping inclines on Nastrandir's craggy landscape - all signs indicative that something else frequents this region.

And something does. Something large, scaly, and very hungry.

Rocobra have now been unlocked in the bestiary!

The spiny protrusions on this creature's long, sinuous body will make it quite difficult to distinguish from its surroundings; these beasts tend to disguise themselves as the surrounding mountain rock where they live. Mild chameleonic properties allow this predator to blend almost seamlessly in with a rocky environment of almost any texture and color. And, given the size of them, it's very possible you won't realize that you're stuck in one's coils until it's too late.

With thick, scaly hides, large jaws, and venomous teeth, the rocobra is deadly fast despite its significant bulk. Even at their smallest, the rocobra is often as thick as a tree trunk in girth, and can range from thirty to sixty feet in length. Rocobra specialize in draping themselves in a circle, concealing themselves among their surroundings, and waiting for unsuspecting prey to wander somewhere in their coils before drawing tight around them to constrict them into a slow and painful death, so they might be devoured.

The good news is that rocobra only ever hunt and live in solitude; it is highly unlikely you'll find more than one in any one area. Most cannot spit venom, but can deal a paralyzing strike with massive fangs that are just as likely to impale you as they are to poison you. The good news is that they do have a weakness, and that weakness is numbers - when there is more than one target for the rocobra to focus on, it can get hopelessly confused over who it should be striking first, and can be easily distracted and led along by a well-coordinated team or pair. It's advised that you strike it at the mouth, if possible, as those scales can be awfully hard to penetrate.

While the danger rocobra present is very real, that doesn't mean they're completely useless. Rocobra can potentially be harvested for venom, meat, or their tough, scaly hides.

All new arrivals will awake with knapsacks, their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can all be found in your acceptance notices!

As a final note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme, bear in mind that those threads, if all parties involved would like, can be game canon in the form of dream-like memories involving a place very much like this one, though the layout is considerably different.

Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the Locations Page, which has details regarding the starting areas and a handy map for those who feel better with a bird's eye view!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i. A4 ; dentists aren't shit

[Tim's positioned himself near the mana pool for the moment, and not for no reason, either. He alternates between filling a spare basket with handfuls of candyfruit - never know when something like that could be handy, and he could probably bring this back to a couple of the kids who are understandably skittish about exploring new islands - and studying the damage done to the mana pool and the crumbled statues beside it. You might see him scribbling a few things down in a thick notebook.]

[If he's not doing that, then he's wordlessly shoving large sticks into the pool, underneath the tumble of rocks that have fallen into it, and using it to slowly lever each stone out from the liquid.]

[If no one's gonna clean this place up, then Tim will do it himself.]

ii. B4 ; fangs up

[Once the pool's squared away, Tim starts fanning out. He's not unarmed, at least; he's got a spear in one hand and there's an axe strapped to his pack and a mess of knives in his pockets besides. Still, he's not necessarily the best guy to have on your side in a fight. Tim only has two strategies and the first involves stabbing someone while crying while the second is more or less just him setting things on fire.]

[The worse news is that Tim's already prone to paranoia. Something in the corner of his eyes. Something behind him. It's usually easy enough to shove those feelings down precisely because he knows that they're not real, not really, they're just him doing his damnedest to adjust and failing, but this time it isn't working.]

[A quiet trickle of gravel runs down one of the rocky slopes, and Tim tenses. Turns slowly. The rocobra blends in well with the rock - he can't pick it out from the scenery.]

[But he can tell something's there. Call it a reflex, refined after too many years paying close attention to when something was or was not behind him.]

If someone's there, you'd better come out. [His grip on his spear is slipping, and he adjusts it with a grimace.] Seriously, come out.

[The rocobra, of course, doesn't have a response.]

[It's waiting for him to turn around.]

Tim, you're all on your own here? [And whether or not Tim appreciates the help, Zidane already grabs a large stick and starts trying to move the rocks out of the way with it. You don't need a reason to help people and all that. That and the sooner the mana pools become usable, the better. Might as well deal with that first.]

Geez, what a mess. Gotta wonder how long it's been like this.

[Shouldn't be a surprise - he just does whatever needs doing, and mostly he's doing that on his own. He only shrugs, and keeps moving the wreckage. The help isn't unwanted, though.]

I dunno if the rocks were intentional. Worries me that it definitely looks like someone tried to burn up this place on purpose.

Yeah. It kinda does look like that, doesn't it? [And while Zidane has plenty of optimism, that doesn't mean he ignores any possibility of danger. Which is why Tim's comment makes him consider one thing.] I just hope that whatever caused it still isn't around.

Still, if it is, we'll have at least one escape route once we clean up all this mess.

Might've happened a while ago. Still, I dunno. Could be a problem.

[He's pretty sure it's gonna be a problem. Nothing here is ever easy.]

If we really get fucked, we could try calling Connor. He's gotta boat, should be able to get people off this place.

tim wright | ota | i'll match your formatting

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ii!!!!!!

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Dentists

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i!

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