[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

[lifeaftr_mods]

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.



Those who tell their stories will start to notice something...odd taking place. Indeed, no matter how they intend to begin their tale, the land of Mu will immediately start to warp to accommodate it, or something utterly unlike it, until storytellers and listeners alike may find themselves in an exact recreation of a seemingly random memory, in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play - you will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

---

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story...with a slight twist! This is, in fact, our first player plot, as provided by Dragon! The initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams.

Yet for this Storytelling only, people can imagine whatever stories they wish, from both their homes and their time on LifeAftr, as long as they don't mind the fact that others will be reliving those stories in the form of an impromptu memory share.

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. If the memory is recalled in essence, Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

There is, however, a benefit to this: those who venture memories to be relived will receive both a befuddled apology from the Storyteller, who will assert that this was most definitely not meant to happen (they're the Storyteller, not the Rememberer!), as well as a tired promise that the relived memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation.

Not that it counts for much, probably.

Comments

ɪ. ᴏᴠᴇʀᴡʜᴇʟᴍɪɴɢ ᴡᴏɴᴅᴇʀs ᴀɴᴅ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ

[hyperlit]

Pinwheeling fragments of light, glistening glass-shards of white rhombi spinning amok in a bleak void of utter nothing. A halation of bone-white glistens in the loosely-defined sky. A bright pink rhombus hums with an unearthly tone, illuminating a dark, slender silhouette: a pointed snout, a slim set of ears, a dark strip of shadow. The shape of a jackal, suspended in ethereality.

The world detonates.

A stream of hot-pink-read laps against the ruined edges of what remains. Mountains of corpses, mutilated beyond recognition, lay in twisted heaps. The vision shivers as though assaulted by heatwaves.

In the center of it stands the Drifter.

The water comes up to barely their ankles, clear and bloodred. The world's tortured edges flicker, fading and swelling into prominence before finally dispelling utterly. One gloved hand creeps up to the Drifter's chest as they double over, spitting up a great, heated stream of blazing pink. Droplets of neon blood plash thickly into the crimson tide. The dribbles of the Drifter's own blood darken and coil outward like a drop of ink distilled into blood, until in a spiraling inflorescence the dark swells into a shadow: a glaring pink eye, its body a distorted hulk of tendrilled black.

The Drifter's blade illuminates in a hum of cyan as they cleave the creature in two.

The monster reforms in the blink of an eye, twice the size as before. The pink leer of its glower is inescapable, even as the Drifter scrambles to their feet. Each step is pursued by more of the clinging dark.

They race upward, ascending a line of worn steps. A trio of titans, vast and mechanical and destruction absolute, sprawl before them for a flaring instant - before, in a flash of light, their ghastly shapes are revealed to be little more than withered husks, remnants of something that no longer lives.

The vision fades in a sear of photobleached white. The black jackal, whippet-thin, swishes her tail idly back and forth. The ghostly shape of a white rhombus gleams behind the elegant slope of her head as she passes through the shadow of a great door.

There's a light on the other end. That hallowed white rhombus, glimmering in the sky like the sun. The ugly black vines barring the Drifter's way are ripped aside - but they grow again, thick and dark and slithering their way up along the Drifter's chest and locking around their arms in a grip of iron. They thrash, twist, tear at the seething dark as it swarms over them.

But little by little, it claims them, and swallows them whole.

[ooc: the memory in question.]

[shineinside]

The memory leaves Yuka shaken. So much of it is profoundly disturbing imagery, even harder to understand than the other dark pasts she's drifted through in the past hour. Mountains of corpses, writing shadows, titans roaring while decaying...

...Again, through the confusing imagery, she tries to parse out their feelings rather than understanding the literal events. She can tell... that they suffered greatly. That something was eating them from the inside and it might still be there. What was it they said? 'Nothing fixable'...

Yuka never found the Drifter the easiest person to approach, but after that, she feels like she had to say something.

"...I doubt it could completely get rid of something as dark and powerful as that sickness, but if it's still hurting you... I have healing abilities, so I might at least be able to make it hurt less for a while..."

[hyperlit]

All things considered, it was one of the more pleasant images in their arsenal. It marked the approach of a god on their behalf, the imparting of a loosely defined quest, the hope that there might be a cure down the line for the illness plaguing them, for the Immortal Cell's frequent nightly visitations, invading their subconscious with visions of their own grisly death.

A quest doomed in the end, but how were they to know that? There was the remotest chance of success, and so that was sufficient.

not that simple

A polite refusal, paired with a slow bob of their head, the closing of their dark eyes into slits.

but thank you

[shineinside]

Not that simple... she supposes that there's more to their story than she knows, and that she probably never really will know it. But still, she can't help but care.

"...Is there a cure?"

[hyperlit]

A shake of their head.

No.

There is no cure. They fought in the vain hope that there would be, but one by one, every one of them with that illness seeped into their lungs in toxic drips of pink and scarlet, succumbed. The only respite is the hope that, with the destruction of the Cell, that plague will trouble no one else.

but perhaps it will trouble no others

[shineinside]

No cure. So they're... going to die?

It doesn't feel fair. She doesn't know their story, but it seems like they've been through so much, from what little she knows.

"Is that what you did? Stop the source of... whatever it is?"

[hyperlit]

They cannot be sure, is the thing. Even now, they cannot really, truly be sure. The promise of clear water by the end, that vision interspersed in their head - they cannot know, not for certain, if that was the jackal god's doing or little more than a fever-addled vision from a dying soul, who so desperately wished that it all meant something.

They could comfort her with that. Could they?

How could they, when they cannot even know that for certain?

unknown

[shineinside]

"That's..."

The more she learns about the other people she's met, the more pain she uncovers. Why are their stories all so cruel? If people have to suffer, why can't they at least be rewarded for it in the end? Why can't the world be fair?

Yuka looks down in awkward silence, unsure of what she can say to any of this. Whatever words she can think of, they would just sound to her like hollow platitudes.

[hyperlit]

There is nothing she need say. The Drifter has had no reason to mask their fate, and there would be difficulties in doing so, given the obviousness of their illness. They did not embark upon a quest for comfort or for sympathy.

So they merely incline their head, polite as ever.

do not worry

[shineinside]

Easier said than done. But still, she shakes her head and attempts a smile.

"Sorry, on top of everything I shouldn't make you worry about my feelings, too... if you say I shouldn't worry, then I won't worry."

[hyperlit]

will endure
always do

That is their specialty. Resolve in the face of all else. The overpowering and singular ability to never retreat - to take even the vaguest, faintest possibilities for an achievement of their goals and convert them into something tangible.

They endure.

[unpurify]

[The Drifter, a jackal and a world that exists long enough to detonate before their eyes.

The sight and smell of corpses is not unusual to the Batter so he isn't going to bother commenting on it. Instead he watches the Drifter double over and cough, pink blood splashing against the ground and turning into a black corruption. A shadow rises, something great and terrible only to last a second against the Drifter's blade.

Or not. It comes back monstrous and worse in a way that oddly reminded the Batter of himself. Towered over the smaller Drifter and continued hunting them down no matter how far they ran.

"Escape is impossible."

And what comes next are large machines that are destruction incarnate before a flash of light reveals them to be mere skeletons of what was. Old and withered husks of metal brought down by time and perhaps something else.

The white light the Batter has no problems watching without blinking until it fades away. And then there's the jackal again and a great door. The light beyond the door seems to be something the Drifter wants and they claw towards it despite the vines clawing at their being.

The Drifter tears the vines down again and again until they can't. And then they're gone.]

What were you looking for?

[What was that light?]

[hyperlit]

[What does it mean, when someone can regard a holy beast without flinching, without acknowledgment, when one barely needs to shutter their gaze against the searing blaze? He is a warrior too, they know, but of what sort, they cannot say. They’ve not any cause to pry.]

[Eventually the Batter does, however. The Drifter gestures at the center of their chest with one gloved hand.]

a cure

[unpurify]

[The King of the Rot, the executioner of the end of the world. The Batter.

Myself, in every sense of the word. But this isn't his story.]

For the world? Or yourself?

[Because they were looking pretty sick before the world turned black.]

[hyperlit]

[The answer does not come immediately. For the world? For themself? For...]

[It's hard to say. They had reached the end of all hope, until the jackal god had hinted at another path. If they were not seeking for a means of saving their own skin, perhaps they never would have bothered. Perhaps none of them would have.]

[Perhaps that is why the jackal had chosen them, and others like them. Perhaps she only chooses those whom she knows will be hers; those who have nothing left to lose.]

for myself
and for both

[unpurify]

[For themselves and for both. A reason to continue.

The Batter doesn't know anything about the Drifter besides their appearance and the brief glimpse that memory had given him of their world. And while he hadn't flinched when the darkness approached but the dominating presence of it was hard to ignore at the same time. And yet the Drifter continued.]

Did you find it, in the end?

[He's not expecting an answer so the Drifter doesn't have to give it. But an answer would be interesting for...various reasons.]

[hyperlit]

no

but the world may have

[May have. May have, because they cannot know for certain. They cannot know, when all they have is the promise of a glittering expanse of water beneath the sun, glorious and pure and untouched by poison and decay.]

[But they were not there to see it. Not in person. A vision bestowed upon them by a benevolent god...or the feeble wishes of the dying?]

do not know

[unpurify]

[There are a lot of 'maybes' in the world.

The Drifter did not find their cure but the world may continue to survive from whatever had happened to it. This also implies they were not around to see for certain if it does or not, be it due to arriving in this place or some other reason.

At the very least the Batter saw the darkness consume himself and the world before he woke up on a raft.]

I do not know if this is the correct thing to say.

[He's still learning, after all.]

But if that is what you wished the world to see, then I hope it came to pass.

[hyperlit]

[That is a...]

[It's a kind sentiment. If this is what they wished from the world, perhaps it would come to transpire. The Drifter inclines their head in a slow, deep nod: polite and earnest.]

a final vision:
water
the shining sun

[And the edges of their dark eyes crease in something...something like joy. Something like contentment. Something like relief.]

[If there are any people like the Guardian in the world, perhaps that means they will live well.]

[unpurify]

Another day.

[Continuing in its simplest form. Living another day. Perhaps also purity, in a way. Different for what was called in his world. Maybe...no.

A 'what if'. But if that is what the Drifter's world gained by their efforts, then it should be enough.]

[hyperlit]

a world cured

[For that, they will have to believe it is worth it. They will have to believe that something good has come of that sacrifice, and that others who are kind, others who look at a stranger bleeding out upon the ground and pick them up to take them someplace warm and safe, will live on because of it.]

[They must believe that such a thing is possible.]

[unpurify]

[The Batter has to wonder if there was some irony at work, meeting someone who tried to fix their world without destroying it.

Clear seas and hope for the world.

But it's not his story and the Batter doesn't want to bring the mood down. So...]

However it is defined. Perhaps your world will see a rainbow.

[Something pure and wonderful when you see them in person.]

[hyperlit]

[A rainbow.]

[The word, in context, must mean something nice. It must. They just don't know what it could mean. Rain does not bend. They have seen rain many times, many times over, but the skies are too distorted and dark and blighted with swollen clouds to allow for that clarity.]

define rainbow?

[unpurify]

[Evidently the Batter wasn't expecting that question because he pauses for a moment before answering.]

It is something that comes after a storm. It's rare to see sometimes, but it is full of color.

[It's...pretty. That sounds about right. And means a lot more to the Batter then what he's planning on telling, but that's something else completely different.]

It might be possible to find one on the island.

[hyperlit]

[After a storm. Literal, or metaphorical? That is a decidedly nonspecific way to quantify it, but perhaps they will know it, if they see it. They will keep watch, then, the next time a storm occurs near one of the islands. It likely will not be difficult to miss.]

will wait for a storm