imaginarylogs | prelude {{ Log 01.

prelude {{ Log 01.

Island Prelude ; Log 01

Life's a beach—

You wake up on the beach.

Okay, scratch that: you wake up on a beach. Some beach, somewhere. You don't know where it is, much less why you're there. You can feel the warm sun and a light breeze on your skin, along with the insidious prickle of sand worming its way into your fantasy Nikes. You have no memory of being here — but then again, you might not have any memory of being anywhere else.

At least you're not alone. There are other people scattered along this beach, toes trailing in the surf as they brush sand out of their shirts or shake seaweed from their weapons. Each and every one of them has an unremovable bracer locked around their wrist. Maybe you should get up. Lend a helping hand, or ask for one. Maybe somebody else knows more about the situation than you do. Maybe somebody else knows where that music is coming from. Is there a beach party going on?

—& then you d̵̡̪̻̿̽͒i̸̟͓͍͌̾͐ë̸͖͇̪́̔͊.

There's only so far you get before noticing that something's wrong, though. Even if you've got no memories but your name, something in you knows that trees aren't supposed to look like that. They're not supposed to be so . . . low-res. Right?

But these trees, not to put too fine a point on it, kind of suck. Some of them, anyway. Every few trees has one patch that flickers in and out of existence like an old neon sign. Every couple rocks seems to have spasmed and frozen up in one large pixel blob. If you touch these glitched spaces, nothing happens to you, but it certainly doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like you're touching anything at all.

Looking back to the space you woke up, you might notice a pattern. The section of beach strewn with newly-conscious amnesiacs is exceptionally glitchy. There are a couple small patches of sky that seem to just be missing. And out at sea? There's way more of them out there.

If you're a strong swimmer, you might try swimming out toward the horizon. There's only so far you can go, though. After about half a mile, you hit some kind of resistance and blip back onto the beach. Watch the sea long enough, and you might see some boats making the same mistake — although they just end up closer to shore rather than beached, fortunately for them. Boats are expensive, and the barrier, whatever it is, seems to be doing its best not to damage them.

(Jaws Theme)

Walking up the beach towards the source of the music, you start to feel a little bit watched. Turn, and there's no one there. Just a quaint thatch-roofed vending machine with a strange cat face on the plate. Innocuous, though, and certainly nothing to worry about. So you keep going.

Except then you feel it again. And if you manage to pause in time, you'll hear this shuffling sound, like wood dragging through sand. Turn again, and the vending machine is right behind you. Like, right behind you. There's no way it moved fast enough to close that distance, and yet.

There are some options here. You can run — but it'll catch up. You can try to fight it — but you'll just hurt your hand (or other appendage). You can try to reason with it — but it's unrelenting. What it wants, as you'll soon discover, is to yeet a small bottle of dark, thick liquid at your face. It's also very insistent that you drink it. If you don't, it'll just fling another one at you, and keep flinging them, until you're crushed to death by vials or drink one, whichever comes first.

Everyone gets this treatment. The vending machine is never in two places at once, but its ubiquity might make it seems as though it is. When one inevitably breaks down and drinks the Kool-aid, it tastes just awful, but at least it's over and done with now. Surely this will never come up again.

This sparks joy

If you follow the music for long enough, you'll find yourself in easily one of the busiest places on the Island. The marketplace that spreads out before you is known as the Boardwalk, a fact that's easy to discover from any of the friendly locals. For most of you, these will be the first people you've encountered who didn't wash up on the beach alongside you. They're very fuzzy faces, too. The Animalians, a menagerie of anthropomorphic animals, almost all speak Common and seem pretty unfazed by the cluster of bewildered strangers. After all, new faces mean new customers!

There are a truly ridiculous number of things for sale on the Boardwalk. The predominant one is food, of course, and the smells hanging over the canvas tents and open-air stalls are positively mouth-watering. There are a wide variety of foods represented here. Maybe one or two of them will strike you as familiar, or trigger a memory? Pretty much all of them are delicious, though, so there's nothing to lose by digging in. Other goods include clothing, weaponry, art, and jewelry in a variety of styles. If you're lucky, you might find a tent that sells beautiful locally-made instruments — a Bard's dream!

Lack of coinage won't be too much of a handicap here. Barter is welcome, and should you not have enough to barter with, most sellers are happy to trade goods for services. It's highly likely that a newcomer or two will be found up to their elbows in dishes by the end of the night, or doing similar odd jobs for vendors.

Still, no one gets through an excursion to the Boardwalk without being swept into at least one dance. It comes out of nowhere: an Animalian's paw or claw on your elbow, a gentle nudge at the small of your back, and you're swept toward the gazebo, the source of the music that's been swelling all day and into the evening. It's joyous and captivating, the Animalians' love of dance infectious. Even buzzkills might be tempted to softshoe just a little.

What's this? What's this?

The Island seems to be sprouting miscellanea. Extremely distinctive weaponry stuck up a tree, books half-buried in sand or earth, clothing neatly folded or possibly being worn by an animal, or Animalian . . . At some point, it just becomes chaos. There's a great deal to recover, or to steal if that's more your bag. On the other hand, you might choose to be helpful and match belongings with their owners. You never know: a found item might help someone find the memory that goes along with it.

Just west of the Boardwalk, there's something else that might be familiar. At the center of a saltwater lake, easy to get to by rowboat, is a miniature island and swim-up bar. Each place is adorned by a menu listing strange and deja vu-inducing items, from nanchos to decaf espresso paradox. Some are helpful. Some are harmful. Some are just weird? He'll make you anything on the menu, but nothing more. Strangely, should you be overcome by the urge to ask the chef for something special and unique, he will gravely extend one of his tentacles and place a single, smooth, heart-shaped stone in your palm. The squid does not speak Common, but you understand an IOU when you're delicately, slimily handed one.

There's so much to explore here that, by the end of the day when you stumble back to the cabanas and attempt to sort out where you're going to collapse for the night, you haven't covered more than a sliver of it. There's tomorrow and the days after for looking around more, for stumbling across more of your belongings (or other people's), for discovering ruins and murals and memories. No matter how much time you take to fuss over sleeping arrangements, everyone ends up more or less in the same place: an open-air cabana, with the breeze blowing over them through the night and into the morning.

Everyone dreams — peacefully — of the moon.

OOC

Welcome, everyone, to the first Island log, our Prelude! While we will not be taking RNG requests during this log, we encourage you to stretch out, explore the space, and get your ~~sea~~ island legs. For questions pertaining to this log, go here. For general questions, head to the FAQ. For more places to explore in this first log, check out the Setting and NPC pages.

NAVIGATION ⯈

code bases by tricklet

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

☠ NOT SEEING THE BEACH FOR THE GRAINS ☠
[There's sand... absolutely everywhere. That's the first thing Papyrus is aware of, even before his inner monologue catches on to the part where his name is Papyrus. The sand's covering the ground, spilling into his clothes, grainy against his bones and pinching where it gets caught under the metal around his wrist.

He doesn't know how he got to be lying half-buried in sand, or why he's wearing these things, but he has words for a lot of the things going on. This is sand, that's a glove, the thing on his arm is some kind of metal... Maybe armor? Above him is full of bright, and Papyrus squints at the sky like he's never had to compensate for so much light in his life.

The sand falls in little streams as he pushes himself up, some of it catching in folds, and some of it... Well. Some of it, he has to look down and rap on the side of his skull, to knock it out of the holes in his face. The sensation, he finds, is not enjoyable. It's good to know he has preferences.]

☠ IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE ☠
[The marketplace is full of more things he doesn't remember, but all of it's better than the sand. Shops and carts selling various things all over, and his lack of money no obstacle - plenty are willing to haggle a trade of a short chore for a sale. Crowds of people, in a good variety of shapes - though not many skeletons to speak of.

There are at least some bones on display, in the windowsill of a spooky shop with plenty of crystals but no door. It's almost like it's not a real shop at all, the way nobody else stops there or looks at it. But Papyrus is drawn to it, long enough to examine the bones, knock on the window frame, and get appraised by a cloaked and shadowy figure within.

'Start with meditation,' the probably-a-merchant intones, pushing a bundle at him. 'Take this. Now get going, I'm closing for the day.' The curtain swishes shut with such force it should've been accompanied by the sound of a door slamming, leaving Papyrus with a robe, note, and candle in his hands. He considers them, then looks to the nearest passerby.]

Hey, do you know... how to meditate??

☠ A CULINARY EXPERIENCE TO ROCK HIS WORLD ☠
['Surprise me,' Papyrus had said, not wanting to reveal that he didn't recognize many of the items listed on the menu. The chef bobbed in response, extending a tentacle his way without any cooking at all, uncurling it to reveal:]

A... rock?

[A heart-shaped one, at that. Papyrus accepts it, pretty sure he's recognizing it well enough to have the right word and an idea what it is - and none of those ideas connect to food. But he's not the expert here! Bottoms up.

...No, he concludes a painful moment later, it's not meant for chewing on. He shifts it in his mouth, stone clacking against teeth in a gentle cacophany, and stares pensively into the distance as he considers the flavor. Maybe he can politely spit it out, the moment the chef stops waving a tentacle in his face and turns away.]

☠ HOMEWARD BOUND ☠
[The sun is well past setting, he's given meditation a shot... and wound up with a small white dog for his trouble. A dog who insists it smells something else like him on the island, the way his clothes do. Maybe it's where he lives, they reason, and off they go! A dog and skeleton, on an island-roaming adventure.

It takes some wandering, and checking places he's already been through the day. Random shops in the boardwalk, a loop around the beach, even back up to one of the dents where the vending machine accosted him with vials.

But eventually, they reach a cabana he's sure he doesn't remember stepping into. And sitting right out in the open on a table is a set of keys with a skull, which almost certainly confirms it.]

Aha! This must be where I lay my head, huh? But... there's not much in here...

☠ WILDCARD ☠
[OOC: Looking for a different prompt? Papyrus will roam all over the place through the day and much of the night, so you can tag me with something, or catch me in the discord, plotting post, or

swirlingflight to brainstorm one. And feel free to tag with action or prose, I'll match your style!]

[Sans isn't exactly a random passerby. No, he'd spotted Papyrus before the other skeleton went into the store, and he was hanging around outside it when Papyrus left. This is definitely the skeleton from his photograph.

(Sans, for his part, is wearing a scarf that looks identical to Papyrus's, but that's not on his mind right now.)]

Pretty sure you gotta sit real still and think about absolutely nothin'. [It's probably more complicated than that, but Sans could never get past the "don't think about anything" part, anyway.]

[It's like visiting one bone-themed shop was enough to summon the skeletons out of the woodwork. Though there's some kind of illusion going on with the shop, because now that he's glancing at it there is a door... and no sign of the spooky paraphernalia. Strange.

Papyrus puts that out of his mind, focusing instead on the other skeleton, and the answer on offer.]

Think of absolutely nothing? That sounds... tricky. How do you keep from thinking about thinking about nothing?

If you're thinking about thinking about nothing, you're thinking too hard. [Is that useful advice? Probably not. Sans isn't actually sure what kind of store this guy even came out of, himself, except for it involving meditation.]

Hmmm... So it's a riddle.

[Which doesn't stop him from thinking hard about thinking hard about thinking about nothing, a recursive loop that ends as he (fails) to snap a finger through his gloves.]

I get it! Meditation must be... not thinking. [At least it's easy to say.]

[Sans feels like it's been a while since he's seen another skeleton. Even with that feeling, even with knowing this is someone from that photograph, no memories return.]

Hey, you figured it out already. [Or something. Did that even qualify as a riddle?] You taking meditation classes or something?

PAPYRUS | Undertale | OTA

it's dangerous to go alone

outside the secretive necromancer's shop is the best skeleton meeting spot

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beach

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a culinary experience to rock his world

i love her

i love papyrus

they both deserve the love tbh

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Either Homeward Bound or Wildcard and also I'm so sorry

the start of a beautiful friendship???

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beach

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