prelude {{ Log 01.

[imaginarymods]

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

Comments

c

[alethiological]

[ There's no singing going on here. Unless you count tapping on a dead screen as some type of musicality. The metal-on-glass noise is distinctive enough. It starts raining. Doesn't matter. Run over what little information you have. There's a voice? No, getting information by talking to people sounds stupid, the wrist tablet's a better option. Removing didn't work. Button combinations failed. Maybe it doesn't read metal- wait why is one of his hands metal??

Then the voice is closer, rain going from downpour status to "downpour, but only on the left side because the kid's incapable of waving an umbrella that high". On Lion's end, it's this weird moment where Whoever This Moron goes from staring blankly at his gloves to shooting them a glare that could end lives.

It falls off immediately.

The ever-present Nothing gives way to... something. It's definitely an emotion. He's seen and heard it from enough people since waking up. But which emotion is the question. He thought he didn't have those? Why this twerp?



He's staring. Shit, abort- ]

No, it's- it's fine. Put the thing down, you're too short.

[dialetheism]

[ A look like that should scare them, they think. He cuts a terrifying profile, after all - haggard and spindly like a person-shaped scarecrow, and anyone who would glare so murderously at a complete stranger is probably someone best avoided. The confused, awkward silence afterwards only makes it worse. Memories or no memories, that's just common sense, right?

But the spike of fear doesn't come. In it's place is the briefest echo of familiarity, like they'd expected that response. Like they were used to it. But that makes no sense; they've never seen him before in their life.

There's an ominous rumble from the clouds above, as if a reminder of the situation at hand. Brr, worry about it later, then. ]

Standing around in a storm isn't fine. [ It's out of their mouth before they can think about it, paired with more awkward shifting, trying to stretch their arm even a little bit further to get better coverage. ] It's only for a little while. I can manage.

[ Pause. Reflect. ] -And I'm not too short, thank you, you're just too tall.

[ ... they think, anyway. It feels right. ]

[alethiological]

[ The awkward flailing is noted with the same blank stare they've earned since the glare fell off. One eye closes as the umbrella shifts just enough to throw water in it, but it opens again without a wince. He's... he should be irritated. Maintain a one meter distance at all times to minimize assassination attempts. But, somehow, this is an exception.

A very short exception. ]

You're short. And I said it's fine. It's just water. [ And their wrist is grabbed - but not harshly - and the arm straining to keep them both half-dry is lowered to make sure just ████ is under it. Maybe now they'll leave.

But they won't. He knows they won't. They'll just try the same umbrella nonsense again- Ugh, he's getting a headache at this rate. Today sucks, too many system errors at one time. ]

I'll find cover. Now shoo.

[dialetheism]

[ There's a lot to unpack here, but we're just gonna throw out the whole suitcase, huh.

The grip on their wrist is sudden and strong, enough so that they likely couldn't shake him off if they tried, but... they just stand there and frown rather then make the attempt. What an utterly confusing person. Who insults someone within the first few moments of meeting them?

A steadying sigh, and the frown passes. Patience. Surely they've dealt with worse then this before, even if they... don't... remember it.......... ]

No.

[ Standing there was literal, by the way. They're not budging. ]

Are you always this rude to people who try to help you? I'm not leaving until you do. [ W-wow?? ] So when you're ready...?

[ And up goes the umbrella again. Brat. ]

[alethiological]

[ Inhale. Exhale. Patience. One must have patience with children.

Then he has to jolt a step back on instinct before the edge of the umbrella hits him in the face (donttouchit), and there it is - the divine fury that cuts through the fog. Patience is for dumb assholes. One hand slicks the bangs out of his face while the rest goes off on autopilot. ]

I'm this rude to rich brats! Go wave your weapon at someone else.

[ And neither of these sentences are questioned before he turns and storms off in the direction of the nearest Cabana, insulting the intelligence of mortals the whole way, obnoxious kids, too old for this shit. Et cetera, et al. ]

[dialetheism]

My... what?

[ Less offended, more confused. Because as dumb as it feels to even think about, the second he named - or, accused? - them of being some rich brat, something in them just


settled

like finding a shoe that fit after hours of searching, even if you've never seen it before in your life. That would make a grand total of two things they know about "Lion Ushiromiya" now, even if this one feels... sour. Still, it's better then what they woke up with on the beach, so that's. Something. But that just raises more questions, doesn't it? Like: "how the hell did he know that"? Because it didn't feel like a guess- wait. ]

H-Hey, wait!

[ He's got a head start, but that weird blue coat isn't hard to spot, even in a rainstorm. ]

[alethiological]

[ Maybe if he ignores it, the problem will go away. Surely that's worked before. Lord have mercy.

No. He never will.

It leaves an ashen smear across thoughts and feelings, curbing annoyance into regrets, then regrets into sadness, and by the time ████ catches up, even that's gone back to nothing. Wring out jacket or it'll damage the lining; don't leave a mess under the awning, that's impolite. The GPS notif is ignored. ]

Bother someone else. [ Wait, they were going on about being rude before. So the monotone continues for one more syllable. ] Please.

[dialetheism]

[ The longer they follow this complete stranger, the weirder things get. Despite the downpour, despite his headstart, they keep on his trail comfortably. Despite the total silence, they can tell that for a brief moment, something was distressing him.

Or... they think, anyway. It's just a hunch, and he's just some guy they found in a storm. Maybe they shouldn't read too much into it.

But they hesitate at the boundary of the cabana, regardless, when they finally do catch up. A response like that would be enough justification by itself to leave him alone. They want to. They probably will afterwards. But they want answers first. ]

Still- [ They bite off the rest of the retort quickly, because that won't get him to talk to them, will it? And sinking to his level is childish. So the petty spike of annoyance is tucked back away, and they continue on like nothing happened. ] I just wanted to ask you a question. After that, I'll cease 'bothering' you.

[ A beat. ]

Please.

[alethiological]

[ The exact tone on that 'please' makes him want to commit a murder. Just snap at them like everyone else, it works with everyone else- ]

Ask it.

[ They are probably confused as to why he agreed. Judging by how he immediately freezes in place like a disgruntled statue, they are not the only confused one. ]

[dialetheism]

[ They

honestly didn't expect that to work, for some reason? Huh. ]

... Okay. [ But whatever, in for a penny, in for a- larger amount of money then a penny. ] Why did you call me a rich brat?

[ There's a pause, long enough for that to probably sound like a Stupid Thing To Say, before- ] I mean- in the literal sense.

[alethiological]

[ Welp.

Made your bed, now die in it like a bitch. The answer comes with the bland acceptance of one explaining what the weather is. ]

Don't know.

[dialetheism]

... I see.

[ They sound. Kinda disappointed, actually? They hadn't begun to hope that this weird dude would know more about the Everything Going On then they do, but they hadn't... not thought about the possibility, either.

A fluke, then. Or he's lying out of spite. Both options suck, if they're being perfectly honest. ]

You just felt it was appropriate to shout at a complete stranger, then.

[ At no point does it occur to them that they were being meddlesome right back. Don't be silly. They were just trying to help. ]

[alethiological]

[ For a second, just a second, it's like something moves. Disappointment ebbs through their heart like waves, breaking against a rock that slightly wavers in something like Bottomless Guilt. It needs to do better. It has to.

It also immediately turns back into a rock at the second snip. This has nothing to with how the guy who's been standing in silence jerks back into Offended. Absolutely not. ]

I wasn't shouting.

[ That is the worst defense. ]

[dialetheism]

[ Definitely not. That's just very clearly an example of how they were already feeling! Nothing mysterious going on here, nope. ]

Ah, then what would you call what happened? I'm curious.

[ More of that awful false-cheer from earlier, betrayed only by how white-knuckled the hand gripping the umbrella's handle is. It's the worst defense, and somehow they know that - though it doesn't help that he's being an absolute pain to talk to. ]

[alethiological]

[ For a moment, the exact same false mask as theirs snaps up, about to throw off some equal passive-aggressive quip. "It was a mistake."

But the words stop at "It." Everything stops. That's a lie. Lies are Forbidden. It absolutely wasn't a mistake. He's been adding and removing different parts, picked up from the thoughts and words of others, hoping something will stick. A few moments, something almost fits, but it's still doesn't. This is the opposite. Nothing was added on or repaired, yet there's still something Present. Scrapes left in walls that echo what is known.

Broken piece, worthless furniture, but still with enough use to fix something. It's motivation enough to try reflecting nothing. ]

Everyone with these bracers. [ The leather glove raises to tap the dead screen. It still sounds like metal. ] You have the basics. Name, language, objects, associations, and such. But I have more than that. I should be able to recall any memory at any time, but they've been relocated. Some moments trigger connections, which then call the relevant pieces in response. What you heard was a connection engraved, but the relevant connection is...

[ Just another reflexive spark that dies. Same as that sensation of talking to a Person sparks and dies by the end of the answer. What a waste of words. The sigh is less annoyed and more like someone wishing they could sleep forever and never wake up again. ]

The errors happen more during moments of perceived weakness. So I got defensive. That good enough for your curiosity?

[dialetheism]

[ Hm.

The hand not occupied by an umbrella drifts to their bracer with a frown as soon as he mentions it. Of course they noticed that everyone was wearing one. They'd be a fool not to. Clearly all of them were here, memoryless, for a reason- and searching for that reason is as good a passtime as any. ]

But that would mean that before... whatever caused this, you knew me, somehow...?

[ It's not a hard conclusion to jump to, all things considered; for it to be such a deeply ingrained response, it would have to be something said so often that it doesn't need thinking about. Reacting like that to a complete stranger would be ridiculous. That, too, is a clue.

They just don't know what to do with that clue. It feels trite to shrug and sigh at how an answer only brought more questions, but there's not much else to add, is there? What a pain. ]

.... I must admit, I find it hard to believe that we were friends.

[ And isn't it funny how they immediately feel a pang of guilt at the admission. ]

But thank you for explaining why, I suppose. [ Carefully neutral. Like they weren't the one barging in, looking for impossible answers. ] That... knowing something more is missing, for you, must be frustrating.

[alethiological]

[ There's an inhale to respond back, but the thought gets strangled at the last minute. It's what made this mess to begin with, just shut up. But it's still a reaction from an Elsewhere. Hands are unfolded to stare at the remains to get a simple, mourning hope.

"But we were."

The world flickers once in response to the same person, the same face, the same sigh, but the world behind has changed to a church, veiled in that specific violet-esque color of the Fragment Sea. His hand offers a world and a warning and gets a simple dismissal. "Unfortunately, I'm not your friend." And they have every right to say it.

He tries to grip his hand to stop them and the memory fractures to rain droplets. The hand gets stuck half-closed and refuses to move otherwise. The nerves don't sit right anymore.

So hide it. Everything. Both hands join together, fingers woven, in a move that only looks stilted because of that preceding moment of Nothing. Even the voice has gone back to that dimmed neutrality that ████ wishes they had. Everything is protocol here and non-truths still aren't lies. ] Should I remember anything else involving you, I will inform you at the next feasible opportunity. What name would you like to be contacted under?