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

Hey, me too! Or— [She reconsiders, eyebrows furrowed as she looks down at the ice cream wrapper again.] I thought I just got here! But someone must've seen me before if all this stuff looks like me, right?

That or you've got a secret, really famous twin. [Sans is going to go grab one of those ice creams from the vending machine, though.] Bet if I have you autograph this, I could get somethin' for it.

Huh? What? [Which part of that response is she reacting to? Hard to say.] No way, nobody would pay for my autograph!

[That's ridiculous. Why would anyone bother?]

[Sans pulls out the ice cream--wow, these never look as good as the picture on the wrapper, huh?--and waves the wrapper at Sayori.] So that means you'll sign this for free, right?

[Oh, right, she also has an ice cream. She was too busy being confused about her face on everything.

She pulls it out and— wow! It looks so messed up! It actually brings a smile to her face, and a little bit of a giggle follows. The poster, keychain, and wrapper go into her pocket for now... The big bottle of yuck stays in her other hand, and she glances between it and the wrapper Sans presents to her.] Hmmmm.

[And then between their respective ice creams. After a moment:] I'll sign it if you sit and eat this ice cream with me!

[Ice cream is better with new friends!]

[Sans puts on a face as if he's in extremely deep contemplation over this offer. He's not really.] You've got a deal, kiddo.

Ehehe~ [She runs a hard bargain!!

That said, she leads them over to a nearby smattering of rocks and plops down on one with a nice flat top.

Once she's seated, she takes a lick of the ice cream and examines the bottle of...whatever it is.] What's this black stuff, anyway? Did the machine give it to you too?

Dunno, but it's real insistent about that stuff. [Sans sits and leans back as much as he can on a rock.] Drink that stuff before you finish the ice cream.

[That way she can use the ice cream to get the taste out of her mouth.]

...

[Wow, that sounds ominous.]

...

[She's staring at the bottle with intense contemplation.]

...should I drink it all at once?

[sayori no]

[A good question.] What're your thoughts on how fast to rip off a band-aid?

...I dunno! How sticky is the band-aid? [That's deeply unhelpful.]

Pretty sticky. Like, on a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 6.5.

Hmmmm. [Worth considering!

She stares at the bottle a little while longer.

Then, she takes a bite of her ice cream and tucks the chunk of it into her cheek. After that, she holds it out to Sans and speaks around the mouthful.] Hold this.

[Well, it looks like some serious food experimentation is about to happen here. Sans will hold her ice cream.]

[Once Sans takes the stick, she unscrews the cap of the bottle of ichor. And, ice cream under her tongue, she starts chugging it.

This is a fucking nightmare. A cold, saltwatery, vanilla-y, fruity, fishy umami nightmare.

But she drinks. And drinks. And drinks. And does, indeed, finish it all in one go.

When she finally pulls the bottle away from her mouth, it's with a heavy, drowning gasp, her tongue stuck out and...tears at the corner of her eyes.

A coughed sort of whining noise is the only thing that immediately follows.]

[She has determination, Sans will give her that. He offers her back the ice cream, since she looks like she needs it.]

That thing should leave you alone now. [The vending machine.]

[The haste with which she reclaims the ice cream is grateful, and she shoves a corner of her own goofy-shaped ice cream hair into her mouth with a clearer whine this time. It doesn't entirely clear out the awful taste, since the vanilla-raspberry became a component in the cocktail of awful, but it helps.

After a moment:] That was awful!!

[What did she expect???

A beat.] Wait, "leave me alone"? [She hasn't seen the vending machine harassing people yet...]

If you don't drink that stuff, it gets real pushy, trust me. [Sans is not the only one who has gotten into a dumb vending machine fight.]

Really? [She gives the vending machine a disbelieving look.] It doesn't look mean to me!

[The cat face is cute!

(She is wrong on all counts.)]

Don't be fooled, that's just how it gets its foot in the door so it can throw those bottles at your face. [It was bad.]

What the heck? It can throw stuff?? [That's so rude!!

It looks like she's finally been distracted from the disgusting experience of the voidfish ichor ice cream slurry though. Rejoice!

...though she's now gone through the ice cream so quickly that most of the bar is gone.]

[Sans is eating his ice cream, but also he never opens his mouth. It's fine.]

It's probably like bottle rockets, yeah? All that carbonation in there. [Or magic, but bottle rockets are funny.]

[She should probably think his process of eating ice cream is weird. But she doesn't?

She's not going to examine that acceptance further, either, because she's far more concerned about the aggressive vending machine. She answers with a comprehending:] Ohhhh. Like when you put that one candy in some soda!

[A beat.]

...

[Belatedly:] Wait! I get it! Bottle rockets! [There it is.]

Gotta watch out for those sneaky ones. [Wink. It's not clear if he's talking about the vending machine or his joke now.]

There are sneaky bottle rockets?! [This...this isn't about the vending machine or the joke.]

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