DAY 0 - Morning

[islandiastaff]

[Good morning, contestants!

One moment, you were receiving a mysterious envelope marked "Greetings from Islandia". The next moment, you're waking up on a beach.

Twenty-four people are scattered across the sands of a beautiful tropical beach, all somewhere in the middle of waking up. To your right, a sunrise over a gentle sea. To your left, dense, vibrant jungle.

There are two signs of civilization here! One is a shipwreck, about half of a good-sized ship emerging morosely from the waves. The other is a wooden sign at the edge of the jungle, showing simply an arrow pointing deeper into the island. Looking a bit closer, there is a narrow but well-maintained path into the jungle.

Welcome to Islandia!]

Comments

[exfired]

[is. is the poking helping. Axel decides to not ask.]

Yeah, just a little. Not the weirdest thing about this place, but... [shrugs] Why fake a shipwreck if some of us weren't gonna be on a ship before being here in the first place? Inquiring minds an' all that.

[teethteethteeth]

Why, it's for the atmosphere! Which means this's quite an artificial thing, I guess. Oh, yeah, did you get an envelope too?

[exfired]

Atmosphere's always an important part, fair enough. Aaand yep! I'm guessin' that's how they got the lot of us.

[teethteethteeth]

I've never heard of letters that capture you and take you somewhere else! But I suppose there're always techniques you haven't heard of.

The tricky bit is how they managed to make it so I can't quite reach my true self.

[exfired]

I've seen weirder. [and...pinged!]

Your true self?

[teethteethteeth]

Yeah, this body's just my avatar body. Really, if I could bring part of myself here, I could just cart everyone out across the ocean! But maybe they have a way to prevent just swimming out of here. That'd be problematic. On the bright side, this is a nice beach!

[exfired]

Woaah, okay, hold up, you lost me. Your avatar body?

[teethteethteeth]

Yeah. My true self's way too big, so I use this body for most stuff. But it's not really me, it's more like a puppet.

[exfired]

[. . . . . this is both extremely familiar and completely different from stuff axel knows. dang.]

A puppet, huh... How d'you control it?

[do you put your heart in the vessel what]

[teethteethteeth]

Um, it's a little complicated and honestly I'm not the one who made it. But basically it's like moving your hand. Except it's a person-shaped hand. Does that make any sense?

[exfired]

Yeah, makes sense. So this... it's kinda just an extension of you, right? The real you.

[teethteethteeth]

Something like that. Though it's more like a prosthetic hand, I guess.

[exfired]

Aah, gotcha. Well, hey, this body prolly works better than a hook!

[teethteethteeth]

Though if I had a hook I could be a pirate!

[exfired]

Trust me, the only pirates with hooks are pretty bad ones.

[teethteethteeth]

But it'd be fun having a hook hand. You could use it to hook on to things!

[exfired]

... Innit just easier to just grab 'em with your hands?

[teethteethteeth]

But it'd be really easy swinging from a hook hand! Besides, can't I indulge my imagination?

[exfired]

...Point! [he laughs a bit] Anything else you think you could do with a hook hand, or s'it just swinging an' grabbing?

[teethteethteeth]

Hmm. A parrot perch, maybe?

[exfired]

Y'sure about that? Most parrots I know are kind of jerks.

[ignoring that he "knows" all of one parrot, shut up, it's legit]

[teethteethteeth]

Maybe you just haven't met the right parrots.

[exfired]

... Probably true! Not like I go outta my way to meet birds.

[teethteethteeth]

But anyways, if there's a fake shipwreck, that probably means this isn't that dangerous a situation.

[exfired]

Uh... [that's kind of the opposite from what HE figured...] What makes you say that?