april event, phase one: seeds of unrest 🌱

[beleos]

THE BEGINNING

Summertime in Springstar has been on its way out, heralding the arrival of fall; winter has likewise given way to spring in Highstorm - at least, according to the calendar. Yet there is an unseasonable bite on the breeze - one growing as frigid as the mood among Meris and Zenites in their cities. Between Alenroux’s occupation and talk of ‘the Blight,’ worries have been on the lips of the citizens with increasing frequency - and with good reason. The reports of plant life dying, of objects crumbling, of people whose bodies are deteriorating are dominating the rumor mills and local papers.

Everything comes to a head early in the second half of Pelu.

After an unusual pocket of commotion in the Seat of the Tribune and the courtyard of Yima’s manor, an urgent announcement is made on behalf of both cities: both Great Trees have been quarantined, and no one is permitted in either location without clearance. New rumors spread of an ‘incident’ that saw those in the immediate vicinity of the Trees rapidly demonstrating symptoms of an illness that was becoming all too easy to identify. It had stricken with frightening speed; not long afterward…

The unrest had spread into the streets, and it wasn’t just about the Blight anymore.

Cetina and Kathova wasted no time in reaching out to the Bearers via Communion to offer them guidance from their leaders and incite them to action.

SPRINGSTAR: THE ROOT OF THE ISSUE

Day by day, changes unfold that render the city increasingly dangerous...

ROOTS:

Vine-like roots have begun to thread the streets, creeping upon and over buildings, spreading outward from the Tree in Heliopolis. Over the next two weeks, they will continue to grow in size and become more troublesome, slowly blooming ice-like leaves that radiate a sickly glow.

• GROWTH: Contrary to the Blight’s normal behaviors, some people and things around clusters of vines or leaves can experience a burst of vitality, growth, and splendor as if transforming to beyond peak condition. In a normal citizen, this may result in an almost manic level of energy, reckless behaviors, and aggression. In objects, they become more durable and efficient, but dangerously so - for example, a stovetop cooks faster but burns uncontrollably hot. In plant life, this results in overgrowth that can overwhelm and choke nearby flora, objects, or even people. Then, they burn out an hour after exposure and immediately succumb to a dire state of Blighted.


• CHILL: The temperatures will continue to drop throughout the next two weeks. It will be coldest where vines have clustered and outright dangerously so near where flowers have budded or bloomed in great numbers. This will force some people from their homes.

TIME POCKETS:

In seemingly random parts of the city, areas referred to as ‘time pockets’ have populated. There is no way to identify a time pocket but to stumble into one.

• REGRESSION: NPC’s in these areas will appear to freeze in time once a Bearer has breached the pocket’s radius but appear normal from the outside. Time within has halted at the point the pocket manifested ( typically covering an area like a city street or inside a single large building that sees regular use ). Objects can be freely manipulated but will not fall if thrown, etc.
  • The pocket cannot be left until the Bearer has achieved their objective. Attempting to exit the way they entered, they’ll run into an unseen barrier that is painful to the touch, a sensation of frigidity that travels to their Shard.
  • Their goal will be to locate a past version of themselves hidden from immediate view. This past version of themselves can be from any point in their lives but must be from a moment when they felt extremely vulnerable, isolated, wounded, or fearful.
  • Once finding this past version, they will feel the compulsion to either find a way to reassure their past selves somehow or kill them. Whether it is the Bearer themselves who performs these acts or another Bearer in their company does it for them, as long as their past selves are pacified enough ( to player satisfaction ) or dead, they will gain immunity to the pocket and may leave. The immediate area will remain frozen, however, and the past version will be revealed to be made of roots that will shrivel and die.
  • Note: Bearers will be able to see other Bearer’s past selves, even after they have been freed. Whether the past reflections are capable of speech while functional is up to player discretion.

HIGHSTORM: THE ROOTS OF CHANGE

The snows continue to fall over the city, feeling brittle against your skin...

ROOTS:

Vine-like roots have begun to thread the streets, creeping upon and over buildings, spreading outward from the Great Tree in Yima’s manor. Over the next two weeks, they will continue to grow in size and become more troublesome, slowly blooming ice-like leaves that radiate a sickly glow.

• SACRIFICIAL: [ CW: self-harm ] Where the roots snake and gather throughout the city, NPC’s in several locations are falling victim to the quiet, slow pulse of the flowers and their buds. They will sit and stare at the flowers for hours, unblinkingly, as their body begins to succumb to the Blight. If they are disturbed in any way - a loud noise, an attempt to move their person, etc - they will calmly look up from their worship and crack off a piece of their brittle body before returning to their reverie.
• In order to save them, a pair (or more) of Bearers must sneak up on the NPC - one using a pacifying spell given by one of the faction leaders while the other crushes the flower. If the NPC is not pacified before the flower is crushed, they will become hysterical and the Blight will rapidly consume them, causing them to perish. If they are pacified and the flower is not crushed, the spell will wear off within ten seconds with the same result.

• CHILL: The temperatures will continue to drop throughout the next two weeks. It will be coldest where vines have clustered and outright dangerously so near where flowers have budded or bloomed in great numbers. This will force some people from their homes.

TIME POCKETS:

In seemingly random parts of the city, areas referred to as ‘time pockets’ have populated. There is no way to identify a time pocket but to stumble into one.

• REFLECTIONS: NPC’s in these pockets are moving in surreal blurs, pieces of them moving forward as others move backward, some changing as if time were rapidly passing as others remain frozen still. The Bearers’ surroundings are distorted as if reflecting multiple realities simultaneously.
  • Their goal will be to locate a tall standing mirror situated alone in the center of the time pocket’s radius. The Bearer who first touches their reflection ( henceforth called “mirror-Bearer” ) will cause the world inside the pocket to suddenly stop, reflecting a comforting environment they have fond or pleasant associations with. The mirror will be gone.
• Something or someone the mirror-Bearer highly values, deeply misses, or sees as imperative to their character, goals, or desires will be present. If they make contact with this object or person, the Time Pocket loops and sends them back to searching for the mirror - but they will have no memory of this occurring. Their partner, however, will recall everything.
• Both Bearers will be released if five loops occur without the mirror-Bearer being stopped from causing the loop or if the mirror-Bearer is stopped from reaching their goal for five minutes ( willingly or otherwise ). The longer they refuse to make contact with this object or person, the more tempting and dire the need becomes inside of them.
• Once the Bearers are released, the Time Pocket disappears. If they manage to avoid contact with the temptation inside the Pocket, the roots and flowers in this area will be withered and dying, buying the NPC’s and buildings in this location some time. Otherwise, they will be thriving and dangerously blooming.
• Note: the mirror will not respond to the non-mirror-Bearer once it has been touched the first time.

ENTREE-TING HELP

The Tree of Life is in danger, and you know it. Both Yima and Cyrus have directed all Bearers who might listen to increase visitation to the Tree and monitor it for signs of the Blight - of its leaves changing color, of any frostbitten bark, of its roots withering.

And then, during a moment in which you find your mind at ease, at rest... you dream, even if dreaming is unnatural for you. You dream of yourself sitting beneath the massive bows of the Tree's breadth, at peace. The perpetual dawn's glow warms your skin in a way that seeps into your bones, leaving you certain you are safe from harm. The Tree reaches out, and though it cannot speak to you in words, you feel it is trying to convey a message: one of urgency. One of plea.

But you cannot understand...

Soon, the branches of the Tree are reaching out to others. You cannot see them, but you know they're there; a spiritual tether connects your Shards together, bringing you all into a place of wordless unity. And once your fellows have been summoned, you know what you are here for.

You feel it rather than see it: some meager, barely-there brush of something cold in the warmth of the island's comfort. The Tree is already infected, and the clock is running down for all of you.

When you wake to yourself, a feeling of dread not entirely your own will chase you, and you will find a single violet leaf in your hand.

MISC NOTES

• Bearers start with immunity to the Blight. They will not succumb to the effects of the Blight even if they handle the vines and flowers directly without precautions or care.
• The above effects will occur in small clusters and are not yet spread city-wide during phase one. The escalation of frequency characters will come across problematic clusters or Time Pockets will be slow building.
• For context, it takes about a month from infection to death or dissolution for the average person or object to succumb to the Blight. By the 21st, it will be three days to a week.
• Bearers will be directed by Cetina or Kathova to make efforts to protect the civilians and investigate the manifesting changes around both cities. Both factions are working on their own methods to attempt to counteract the Blight, but neither has produced a failsafe solution.
• The roots will remain mostly outdoors, for the most part, these first two weeks.
• Tensions will slowly ramp up in Alenroux, and there are checkpoints for any non-PC visitors to screen for signs of infection.
• Player characters who die inside the Time Pockets are dead and need their Shards brought to the Tree of Life for revival.
• HAVE FUN!! ♥

CODING

Comments

[diversionist]

[ truthfully, the trip to the beyond left cassian with fewer knives than he'd taken with him — broken and lost against various dangers, not least of which were the blood-drinking tree aliens (monsters). but there's still one in his boot — both of them — and he's acutely aware of them now. he knows how long it'd take his fingers to slip around the handle of one, what kind of ruse he might need to employ to do so unnoticed. not bothering to replace one in easier reach was the stupidest kind of negligence; he knows better. it doesn't matter that he's newly returned from a long, arduous journey. it doesn't matter what exhaustion pulls at his limbs, clouds his mind. he's gone longer without sleep. he knows better.

but whatever he might have said to jyn a moment ago, or her to him, there is one thing he knows with a startling clarity: she will watch his back. just as he will hers. whatever they're going to face, it's better that neither of them are alone.

(and if he notices any aborted motions by her hand, he doesn't let on.)

instead, his eyebrows rise as he takes in the girl who appears in front of them. her hard eyes, slight but strong frame. he knows her, of course, even though he's never seen her before. when he'd read jyn's dossier, before setting eyes on her, he'd imagined what she might have looked like when she was part of saw's cadre. even after he'd met her, in truth. on route to jedha, while in the holy city, he'd imagined her younger and perhaps angrier, the girl raised by saw gerrara. she'd looked something like this.

he looks from her to the jyn he knows — still, so still, nearly as still as she'd been when he found her as jedha crumbled around them — and then back again. he has no idea what they're supposed to do here. all the things they've seen, ghosts of the past and all, and this is still a new one. but,

he slowly raises his hands, palms to the young girl. empty. he says, ]

Hey,

[ and his voice isn't gentle, but it is nonthreatening. pitched to defuse a situation. ]

Hey. No one's coming any closer. Okay? [ with his boot, he nudges at jyn's foot. ] We're not going to cause any trouble.

[vallt]

[the way that the ghost stops — not appeased by the words, but considering, assessing — is familiar. of course it is; that's saw all over her, with the lessons that jyn still holds to this day sunken in deep.

so, too, is the way that her eyes narrow as they move from cassian's empty palms to his face and then back again, as they slide over to jyn and linger. and so is the way she steps forward, knife still brandished in a steady hand, only stopping a few feet away. jyn knows this move particularly well; it's intimidation, carrying a threat of violence that won't be empty.

it's that realization, more than even the nudge at her foot, that shakes her out of herself, that carries her until she's standing in front of cassian, eliminating any possibility of a blade that, for all she knows, could actually harm him, ever getting a chance to do so. she looks into the eyes of the past, and says, without a beat of hesitation:]

You can trust him. [her voice is much quieter than it's been at all in recent memory — and much softer.] He means what he's saying.

[the girl tilts her head, raising her brows in a way that's also all too familiar.

"how can you know that?" she scoffs. "nobody ever means anything they say. all they do is trick you. and if you ever believe them, they leave you behind."

her hand, jyn notes, shakes around the handle of the knife, even if her voice remains steady. "i should kill you just for being stupid."]

[diversionist]

[ no, he thinks, you can't.

he looks at this image of jyn: so young, so distrusting, so angry. and he thinks, one day you'll meet me, and i will betray you. years in her future, he will see her extracted from prison and lie to her. he will use her. he will nearly get her killed, and he will get her father killed before her eyes. there will be no recompense for what happened to her. this girl, so young, so hurt, will meet him and suffer for it. she will curse his name more than once. he cannot, in all honesty, say that she will be wrong to.

but he looks at this girl, and then he looks at the woman who stands between them. jyn erso really would shield him with her body as much as her assurances not five minutes after shouting at him in the street, and maybe the most surprising part is that it isn't surprising. how can it be, after everything they've been through together? he did trick her, just as the shadow of her past says. but that's not the only thing he's done.

cassian lifts his hands to her shoulders, his jyn's, and he gives them a brief squeeze. and then he steps out from behind her until he's at her side. until he has a good view of this ghost, and also the woman who told him, i'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad. ]

You're right, [ he says, addressing the girl. ] People will trick you. People will lie to you. People will abandon you. That's the kind of galaxy we live in.

[ there's no reason to believe kenos is any different. there's no reason to lie to this memory of a young girl, that he's any different. ]

But that isn't all there is. Yeah, people will fail you. But not everyone. And not all the time. [ his eyes flicker from her face, to the adult jyn's. ] You're going to meet people, one day, who come back for you. Who want to come back for you. Who would follow you anywhere.

[ not just him. chirrut, in particular, would be more comforting in this moment. more eloquent. bodhi would be more nervously earnest. baze would be as blunt as a brick wall. kay...well, kay would just insult her. but he might make her laugh, too. ]

People, [ he says, softer now, ] who won't always understand you, but won't stop coming back to you. Not ever. Even if they make mistakes.

[ he looks to meet jyn's eyes. it's an apology; it's also welcome home. ]

[vallt]

[the lessons that jyn still carries with her to this day tell her: she shouldn't take her eyes off of any threat. doing so for even just one second could mean a mistake that she'll never be able to take back — one that doesn't just impact her. she knows this; she knows this like she knows the proper swing of a truncheon for a hit that's guaranteed to do the most damage, like she knows the back of her own hand.

but when she feels the squeeze at her shoulders, when cassian begins to speak — she can't. her eyes are now drawn (and maybe have been since the moment they'd met) to him as she takes in everything he's saying, watching for the lines between them. they linger, even when they begin to sting and her vision begins to blur with unshed tears she's forced to furiously blink away. a feeling she couldn't even possibly begin to identify seizes in her chest and creeps up into her throat.

people... who want to come back for you. who would follow you anywhere.

she thinks, briefly, of when cassian had been there, emerging from the smoke on top of the tower, broken and beaten but still the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen — because it'd been him. she thinks, too, of the crowd he'd gathered into the hangar on yavin iv, everyone who'd made a mission possible that wouldn't have been with just four people (no matter how much chirrut's, baze's, and bodhi's unquestioning support had meant to her), and of the words spoken low and meant only for her —

welcome home.

there's just silence in the air now, stunned from her and appraising from the ghost, punctuated only by breaths. tension, though, seems to ebb with each passing second, and —

decision apparently made, and knife pocketed, the ghost addresses cassian, not with the narrowed eyes of a seasoned partisan communicating an intentional threat, but with the scrunched nose and raised brows of a teenager: "you're an idiot."]

Can't disagree with you on that one, [jyn offers, alongside a single glance backward and the barest hint of a smile tugging at her mouth, before returning her undivided attention to the man who'd come back for her because he'd wanted to. the man who'd welcomed her home.

what an incredible thing to behold, when her life has had so much of neither — that want, or a home.

this time when her hand moves, she lets it travel where it will, reaching for cassian's and entwining their fingers together.

the gesture says the whole collection of words she isn't quite able to form, but specifically two, above all else.

you're forgiven.]

[diversionist]

[ he couldn't leave her, he thinks, if he tried.

and he has. he could've, should've left her behind on jedha. trying to find her while the city shook itself to pieces wasn't just unnecessary; it jeopardized his life as much as his mission. he could've, should've left her behind on eadu. but how could he fail her after failing her father? he could've refused to go looking for her on scarif after he'd fallen. maybe that would've been smarter. every step had been excruciating, and lifting his arms to shoot krennic — and keeping the blaster trained on him — had been agony. but if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been there to protect her. to make sure the message was transmitted. the two most important things in the universe.

and one of those tasks is still left to him now. it's lucky in a way; he tried living without, in his first days here, and he'd been lost.

it can't be said that he visibly relaxes when the teenage jyn puts away her knife, but it also can. subtle tells, but clear ones to someone who knows how to read him the way jyn does. but then the younger one calls him an idiot, and the older does the same, taking his hand, and,

well. he squeezes her hand, and offers the both of them a rueful smile. to his jyn, he suggests, ]

Let's go home.

[ their apartment isn't home, really, not any more special than any other set of walls and ceiling. but it's the place where jyn returns at the end of the day, as much as he does. and so: it really is. ]

I have a lot to tell you. [ all that work he did while he was away, the things he saw and discovered, updated assessments of a few of the people here. a beat, then he admits, ] And I'd rest easier with you with me.

[ cassian andor willingly suggesting rest. this truly is a day for the impossible. ]

[vallt]

[somewhere, in the space between moments, the air begins to warm, with only ghosts of the chill that jyn had felt seep into her skin lingering there. the specter of a past that never goes far fades, too, flickering out of sight like a dying flame burning on its last embers. all around them, possibilities open up, no longer trapping them in one direction.

jyn barely notices any of it.

her eyes have yet to leave cassian. they take stock of the way he relaxes, the way he drifts in when she reaches out, as easy and natural as breathing. a thought, somewhere, one that falls away almost as quickly as it surfaces, thinks this is the first time she has really done so, breathe, since he'd left.

a smile, something that only lasts in the space between moments (and only for him), creeps up onto her face when his hand squeezes hers, and stretches that space as it lingers.]

Me too, [she admits, then. on both counts, even if she doesn't say.

there are more words for another time, another place.

for now, she'll give him three.

an echo:] Let's go home.