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

[ She turns a little pink in the face and clears her throat. ]

... It's better than nothing, at the very least. Maybe you could take it up with the manager?

Uh-huh. I don't have a clue which of the who knows how many animal-y denizens that could be.

...Oh. Oh wow, no, okay, I just realized any cabanapeople who could be scantily clad would also probably just be animals? And I'm not a furry.

[ Oh, she just realized that too. Oh no. ]

W-well, neither am I, so I believe you.

But I think I can turn into an animal now? Not, um-- like the animal-people here but.... [ She is just... trying very hard to veer away from this! Unfortunately, she sucks at it. ] It's strange, though... I couldn't do that before.

Wait, what? You can just straight up turn into an animal? What the fuck! What do you mean you couldn't do that before!

[ .... Huh. It's then that she realizes there's something going on here, and she gives him a bit of a funny look? Like she's confused that he doesn't know she couldn't. Dancers aren't usually known for turning into animals, and it's not like he didn't know back at the Bureau.... ]

Um, those bottles we drank? They had information on our abilities now that we're here. Turning into an animal is one of mine, apparently.

...What. You mean to say that the weird vending machine stalking people is like...telling people they can do weirdo magic shit?

Sort of.

[ Her eye finally catches the bracelet, and now she's thinking about how to approach that. Okay. First things first, she pulls a paper from her pocket--it's the one she'd peeled off the bottle, the one that lists all her new abilities. She holds it up for him to see. ]

... It's kind of gross, but that stuff in the bottles... it makes things a little clearer. And mine had this on it.

It's on the back of the label? Did anyone think that's a stupid place to put important information about how we're all RPG characters in some dipshit kid's old SNES?

It... is kind of a terrible place to put the information.

[ ... but she can understand why; it's the best place for it, considering what the stuff in the bottle is. ]

Did you drink the stuff? Or is the machine still harassing you?

Uhhhhhhh. Hm. I guess...I should...do that?

[...??? He should definitely drink something, right? After being on a beach and running around and talking? He should be thirsty.]

You'd think water would be better.

Well, it's not wrong.

[ Water's definitely better. Literally anything is better. ]

But... I doubt that machine will leave you alone until you do.

Okay, okay, I'll...drink the...thing.

[So why?? is he hesitating?? to just take off his helmet and drink?? He fidgets and fusses with the thing, but eventually he opens it up aaaand...cracks the seal on his helmet, tilting it up just enough to throw in the gross dark liquid. Into his mouth? Obviously. Definitely right into a mouth, surely.]

...And then I peel the label off?

That's what I did.

[ ... part of her is honestly curious to know if his abilities has changed, too. ]

[He clicks the helmet back into place and peels the label. Gives it a read. Looks up at her. Looks back down at the label.]

So this is bullshit, like, we're in agreement, right?

[ ... yeah, you know what. ]

It's incredibly bullshit.

[ Probably for a different reason than his, but. Details. It's fine. She's fine, she's doing great, even as she gestures to the label. ]

What does yours say?

I mean, it's talking about things people can do like--uuuugh, like magic and stuff? And, sure, okay, if we're all in a glitchy videogame, then sure, magic, whatever, but does it look like I'm built for magic? I'm built for shooting people. With guns. On a battlefield, probably? Magic is not gonna cut it.

Hmm...

[ She's quiet for a while as she mulls that over. He's got a point. ]

Well... Before coming here, I didn't think my old abilities were anything I was cut out for. [ And she still doesn't, if Thay is any indication. Just like. All of it. Where the hell were these rogue abilities when she needed to snag that relic? Not to mention how badly her attempts at using Allure went. Ugh. Whatever. ] But maybe once you give it a try, it'll come easily to you.

And for what it's worth... I think magic is the name of the game here. It might be new, but it could be useful down the line.

... I think I can understand what you mean, though. How is turning into an animal going to help anyone?

Uh, it'll look fucking awesome is what. You could be a big bear, or a puma or something! Pounce on some assholes and tear 'em apart! Or be, I dunno, a tiny little mouse and scurry away? Be a porcupine and curl u pin a ball. That can be super useful!

[ ... Well, as much as she hates the idea of fighting, he's got a point? She makes a small, considering noise before she points to his wrist. She's almost hesitant to bring it up, and she knows she's gonna kick herself for it, but you know.

Bad decisions don't make themselves. ]

Or... a hedgehog? Like on your bracelet.

...I guess? Yeah? But porcupines have bigger spines, I think. A hedgehog'll be a little uncomfortable; a porcupine means fucking business. Just-- [he makes a boom-like sound, hands exploding around his face] --all up in your grill.

[ ... She'll take that as a confirmation that, no, he doesn't remember her (because she's half-expecting him to say something like yeah, the bracelet YOU made, you nerd if he did remember), and it stings pretty badly. She'll deal with that later. It's fine. ]

... You're not wrong. Ah, I wonder if I can change into a... really big porcupine, or if I have to be regular porcupine size.

A regular one can still fuck up your day if you're not careful. I'd totally change into a, a, a, like an eagle or a jaguar or something cool and powerful.

...Can I learn to do that? That seems like a bullshit magical class RPG thing I should be able to learn.

... You know, I don't know. Honestly, I'm not sure how these things work.... Maybe it's worth a try to see if you can learn somehow?

[ .... ]

I'm not sure this is... possible, but it would be really neat to be able to turn into a dinosaur, right?

...Holy. shit. You just blew my mind. Forget how fucking stupid the idea of magic is--I would give all the armor and guns to be able to transform into a fucking dinosaur!

[ ... Honestly, this has the same energy as If you cast haste on me, can I jump really far? and she can appreciate that. She even lets out a little laugh. ]

How about.... if I can turn into a dinosaur, maybe I can help you learn how to do it. It's too cool not to try, right?

prelude {{ Log 01.

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