lakerfuffle
Career
- Joined
- May 16, 2013
- Messages
- 831
- Reaction score
- 406
Screenshots
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Story~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The winners are never happy. Not really. I was never one of them, but I've heard enough stories to know what it feels like. At some point in the course of winning there has to be loss, or you become numb to the life going on around you. You get a sick feeling in your stomach, the kind that you know, without a doubt, will never be cured. No, the winners are not heroes, or champions. They are only sad.
We found our city under the water. Before coming to our curious destination, we endured an awfully long stretch of drifting. That's what it was, after all. Just drifting. Through the waves, a gentle rocking - back and forth. There were of course the storms, too. The dark, looming kind of storms that you can feel from miles away. Storms that leave you in awe; ones that course through your bones. The claps of thunder and streaks of lightning illuminating the churning water under your feet- they're the only source of exhilaration for a people lost at sea. They give purpose to the drifting. Somewhere in the eye of these storms, out in the middle of endless ocean, there is purpose. Pure purpose. Somehow, you have been chosen for the great show in the sky.
It was between storms and drifting that we found our future. A massive shape calling to us from the murky depths. It was so unfathomably large - primordial, even. I knew that day that we had just found ourselves in an entirely new world. Our lives were being written in a book; we had undoubtedly reached the last chapter. No sequel. But the city under the water? It was an entirely different medium, apart from that which can be written down and talked about. This city under the water, we all knew, was impossibly old. So old that history itself had forgotten it; the city might as well have been built the day before.
Our look-out did not even possess words to describe the dome. "Land ho!" obviously was not appropriate. "You've got to see this," is all he could manage. Soon we all knew why. Below the usual foreboding black-green surface was the biggest structure anyone had ever seen. That's besides the fact that there was a structure at all; we thought everything had been leveled with the flood. I mean everything. But here below us was this glorious, scary, and oddly tempting, thing.
Nobody remembers exactly what happened next. It's spotty. For sure, we got in life boats and paddled right above the dome. I know that. But next...the water, everything, started turning. We were no longer drifting, but spiraling. Down. The ocean gave out beneath us, the dome opened. More water, rushing up to meet us. We were falling, falling. One hundred feet. Two hundred feet. Three hundred? Black. I opened my eyes to a dream. Thing is, I have been living in that same dream ever since.
We thrived in Neptunis for some amount of months - the city under the water.Together we discovered magnificent technologies despite the age of the place, hidden caverns, roaring rivers. There were soaring buildings, shrines to gods of yesteryear, ancient cathedrals, homes, massive bridges, mysterious hills, floating landmasses, an empty ship.At some point in time we came around to settling ourselves, taking up residence in the Floating Islands. It was all we could not to go mad, alone in the dark blue depths. But then they came. The oppressors. Our fantastic, lonely world quickly turned into life and death. An arena.I remember watching from my home in the Floating Islands, on Station 7, as strangers, friends, adults, children fought to the death below me.
My heart went out to those dragged down into the arena each month, but there was nothing I could do. I tried not to watch, but I always found myself observing from the farthest lookouts. I was watching it happen live, yes, but at the same time I was so far away. Not just height separated us and the unforgiving arena below. It was easy to think I was in another place entirely, up there. The Floating Islands were normality, where there was still a trace of common humanity. There were shops, soup kitchens, farms. Everything. The ground below, though, was hell. Anyone would agree. But when I was surveying the arena below me, and all the fighting associated with it, I sometimes broke the boundary in my head that had ruled out the existence of a heaven. In these terrible times, maybe there was still hope, I would tell myself. But that was then. Now I realize the only hope that could be found must be millions of miles from that place. The lingering sense of humanity in the Islands was only temporary; eventually the hungry hand of the Capitol pulls everyone down. Just like it did to the rest of Earth, all gone. I still wonder why Neptunis was spared. For the sake of my sanity, I can only hope there is still some refuge out beyond the endless waters. Maybe on another planet, who knows? Anywhere - anywhere - but here.
map specs
- 250 block radius (or 500 diameter)
- ~200 chests
- Easter eggs
download (5/5/14)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/hjbcdntrww1or4y/Neptunis.zip
change log
8/5/13 - added 3 waterfalls coming down from the skylands, offering new ways to get up and down, and expanding the amount of accessible area up there, removed some extraneous hay bales, added a few details (banners, mostly) to all the big buildings, added about 5 chests to the skylands part, renovated one of the houses and added about 5 chests, finished up that house, added 5 docks, 4 boats per dock, around the watery parts of the map, added 2 or 3 chests
11/18/13 - Actually added a decent download link
12/8/13 - Updated map to 1.7.2 thus increasing all-around fps, visual changes
2/10/14 - Map is back to "in-progess." I was not fully satisfied with the final product and want to make some additions. Expect more updates.
2/26/14 - I've at this point modified a lot of the map. There have been a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements with the water outside the dome, to get rid of the spotty lighting that used to exist. I also have added a few structures and made an entirely new underground area. There are still more additions coming, and improvements. Fire away with suggestions. Also, I added some decent back-story to the map to give it substance.
5/5/14 - New ship build. Cleaned up the outside of the map; everything is much more aesthetic outside of the dome.
Builders:
lakerfuffle
Mamiamato24
EvermoreHD
IrishFan44
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