beleos: (Default)
beleos ([personal profile] beleos) wrote in [community profile] kenoslogs2023-04-21 04:58 pm

The Seeds of Unrest, Phase Two 🌱


UPROOTED
Time has not been kind thus far, and the future will be no kinder.

The slow passage of days to weeks has seen both cities increasingly ravaged by the untamed growth of the enlarging roots. Their size is enough to uproot buildings by their foundations, if not bisect them entirely where they push through unfettered. In the worst-hit areas, entire blocks are left abandoned - if even standing at all, displacing families and leaving businesses in ruins.

Cetina and Kathova have been in near constant contact with Bearers via Communion, feeding them information about which areas to focus their lifesaving efforts. Yima’s Manor and the Seat of the Tribune - despite their closeness to the Trees - have been fortified by your leaders and act as a base of operations for each respective faction. You will be able to return to either to find sanctuary from the chaos beyond, but the innumerable civilians are not so lucky.

Bearers are tasked with rescue and recovery efforts and requested to assist hands on the ground with taking refugees to temporary shelters. Survivors must be dug out of the debris. Those who are capable of healing will be enlisted to assist at hospitals and triage centers. Supplies must be gathered and harvested from areas that are collapsed and too dangerous for civilians to navigate. If you are feeling generous, you can go on search and rescue missions, as many people are considered missing in both Highstorm and Springstar. Some areas are completely cut off to regular foot traffic by the massive, winding roots bearing countless Blight-blooms. Citizens are succumbing to the Blight flower’s effects persistent from phase one with more and more frequency.

While both cities slowly succumb to a deepening catastrophe, the situation worsens.

STIRRING STORMS

As the days pass, inexplicable and unnatural weather occurrences will randomly plague both cities. They can last as long as a full day or as little as an hour before dissolving entirely.
  • Flurries: this snow is tainted by the Blight, making the snowfall look like ash. Any organic matter it touches will be affected by reopening wounds, re-infection of illnesses, or re-experiencing injuries that may have healed over years ago.
  • Thunderstorms: these storms carry a frigid rainfall and heavy cloud cover, making already difficult-to-navigate disaster zones harder to clear. As each thunder bellow crashes overhead, you might swear you hear a familiar voice reaching out to you in the fading rumble… one that sends a message - either from the future or past.
  • Fog: dense clouds of thick, freezing fog will roll in randomly, making visibility even more precarious. In your search for survivors - or your companions, you may find yourself coming face to face with someone else, instead: a version of yourself (or a companion) from another timeline. You may also hear your own voice calling out to you from within the fog, attempting to beckon you further into the mist.
  • General Note: Exposure to any of the above weather patterns will increase your Blight infection.
THE BLIGHT COMES FOR ALL
As if it were not enough to see the cities that have become your salvation at the end of the Timestream falling to collapse and ruin, the Bearers will slowly begin to realize their previous immunity to the Blight is eroding. They will begin to show symptoms of infection that increase into May’s event. ( For more information on the effects of the Blight and purification methods, please see the OOC Summary. )

Now that their last bastion - the Bearers - are just as much in harm’s way as everyone else, the populous’s efforts to formulate a temporary stop-gap solution are being rushed to completion. Time is not on anyone’s side. They will continue to work with those who have been kind enough to volunteer their resources and brilliant minds - collecting materials and attempting to figure out a way to avert their otherwise inevitable destiny.

ORDERS

Orders from your leaders will come as soon as infections among the Bearers have been confirmed.

🌙 YIMA will stress for all Zenite Bearers to prioritize their well-being and to avoid unnecessary exposure, to manage their symptoms as much as possible. They must fight for their own survival to bring in the birth of a new universe - and their lives are too precious to risk. Beyond that, she asks them to save what they can of their people and their most critical structures with the understanding that hard choices may be necessary.

🌞 CYRUS will implore all Meridian Bearers to prioritize the general population's lives and turn their efforts to save as much of Springstar as they can. He will note that Bearers have ways to help keep one another from suffering too much contagion and to coordinate their usages appropriately, to keep one another safe, and watch their backs.

ANOTHER EN-TREE-TY
The Tree of Life continues to sicken, yet - thankfully - the progression of the Blight is slow. Still, Bearers will find themselves occasionally compelled to take a moment to sit beneath its boughs and vibrant leaves, even as some begin to show signs of discoloration and rot. Any characters who sit with the Tree with the purple leaf they found on their person after phase one will find it warming to the touch, its veins laced with gold. This effect will be even more effective if taken into the cavernous roots beneath the Tree! While this may fill you with a temporary sense of calm, it doesn't seem to have any other effects... yet still, you are compelled, if not curious.

The Tree has offered you this gift for a reason. Perhaps you will find its use before long.

...As long as you - and Kenos - survive long enough to discover it.

CODING
prizeneck: (100)

[personal profile] prizeneck 2023-05-04 10:41 am (UTC)(link)
[Well.

RIP.

Mamoru has the ability to actually dodge, but he's focused on the man going at them like they're toreros and—

He's barrelled by a guy who he had noticed was way heavier than he looked.

And there they go into the shelves of this fine commercial establishment.
]

Ugh… [He pushes at Vash, his hand slipping on the leather.

'The manager's manager!' the Blighted Guy bellows.
] What the fuck—Get off.
warmare: (立ち聞き)

[personal profile] warmare 2023-05-04 11:01 am (UTC)(link)
[How foolish that line seems. So simple, so pointless. So what if he were a leader of men where he came from? What did it matter if she would have a place in his world, when she was what she was in her own? Who could change everything, who could make it so there weren't those lesser in the world?

Who could make it so that a lone jinba didn't feel isolated by the racial and societal differences between her and the other shardbearers? Who could make it so that an honor-bound one did not burn with bitterness and hatred over every insult and derision directed her way when she opened her mouth in public forum to speak her mind?

Surely no one.

But he turns back and holds out his shard to her, his very soul, and invites her to do what she will with it. To just smash it, if she wanted to. Hayame hates that she is laying down in this moment, too weak to sit up. Her stiffened, Blight-bitten fingers had managed to undo her shirt but had been stymied by the much tighter knots holding the binding of her breasts, and yet she does not yell at him or slap his face away, like she had at the masquerade.

She's staring at his shard. At the trust being laid out for her mercy right in front of her. The life being entrusted to her, without reservation, as if he thought she was worthy of it and was actually willing to show it in a way that couldn't be denied. After a long, long moment... slowly... slowly, not even just because she is sickened and grown frail... her hand leaves her clothing to curl stiffly around his shard. Despite the clumsiness of her stricken body, the numbness in her extremities... the touch is carefully light. It could be called delicate.

With her other, slightly still deft hand, she manages to finally undo the knot on her binding, tugging on a wrap job so vicious it seemed as if she were intent on smothering any part of her that was a woman. One tug, two, and there is a glimpse of stifled bosom swelling as she breathes in, her fingers delve between the cloth strips...

From just below and between her breasts she pulls a sharp, arrowhead-shaped shard from her body, one with a crack running through it, deep and painful. A shard which she deposits in her palm beside the golden crescent.]
fishfearme: (look down)

[personal profile] fishfearme 2023-05-04 11:22 am (UTC)(link)
True...

[And there was the magic one could learn from the Factions as well. Byleth set the curiosity aside though, and focused on the task before him. He held his hand above John's arm - as promised, making no physical contact - and the glow brightened a little bit more, bathing John's radiation burns in a gentle light.

The first thing the magic seemingly did was numb the pain receptors - as if it found the exact point where the nerves registered damage and carelessly switched them off - swiftly followed by stimulating the body's natural healing response. Using John's own energy, the healing magic proceeded to enhance cellular regeneration and excite the fibroblasts into producing more collagen.

Were they in Byleth's world, free from the weakening effects of Kenos, he could've healed this injury in a blink of an eye, supplementing the energy required for such a rapid recovery with his own. But this place weakened him, he was already exhausted, and John didn't feel exactly spry either, so Byleth worked economically: a sliver of energy, emplacing a temporary numbing effect, and encouraging the body to focus regeneration in this area, and he was done.

The glow of healing magic faded, and Byleth lowered his hand.]


There. The pain, at least, should be dampened. Apologies, I can usually heal wounds like this with little effort, but I'm exhausted.
passio: (pic#12189867)

[personal profile] passio 2023-05-04 12:51 pm (UTC)(link)
—sorry!

[ dextera is, appropriately, surprised to see misa here. he’s been devoting himself to relief in springstar since things have taken a turn for the worse, and he assumed that the zenite loyalists—like misa—would be doing the same. anyone else, and he might be suspicious of their presence here, but he wants to believe that misa’s reasonable approach thus far means she’s not here to cause any problems for the residents.

he starts to reach out for her to ensure she’s steady, but at the last moment, his fingers curl away with the quick reminder, looking at his own frostbitten fingers, that he’s afflicted. ]


You shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous…
leicesters: (050)

[personal profile] leicesters 2023-05-04 01:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[This is perhaps the hardest thing Claude has ever done. For someone who once described himself as the embodiment of distrust, to put his life in someone else's hands -- literally -- is excruciating. Or perhaps that's just instinctive revulsion to the Blight, and the coldness of Hayame's skin, but he doesn't betray his discomfort except for the way his hands tighten slightly into fists.

He then watches as she extracts her shard, bound and hidden away like so much of herself. He's concerned by its cracked appearance, but he doesn't comment. His own shard, despite its moonlike shape, has warmth more akin to the sun, already a slight balm to the frostbite eating away at her.]


Okay... Now for the next step. One sec. [He gets up to return to his room. Even the slight, brief distance from his Shard is painful on its own, and his jaw is set tight and voice subtly strained when he returns carrying a sheathed hunting knife.]

One drop of blood each, right? Shall I do the honours?
helloween: (045🫀)

[personal profile] helloween 2023-05-04 01:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Nope. Still doesn't make sense. Dark doesn't say anything in retort, though, instead giving her a small bounce to make sure she's seated securely atop his arm. He's looking around their setting, trying to find a building, any building, far enough away from the foliage and still with a roof intact. ]

Hm...

[ It's surprisingly slim pickings, but Dark manages to spot an antique store in good enough shape. He'll take Rin there. He's strangely quiet carrying her there, with a palpable lack of banter or bullying. Once they arrive, though, he sets her down on one of the items for sale— a dark green, velvet wingback chair. ]

You need me to go get the medicine from our room?

[ Our he says. What an odd choice of words from someone that isn't Lucien. Still, it is quite brave of him to offer considering that the Blight blossoms have highly overrun both of their living quarters. Going back means risking affliction. ]
helloween: (070🫀)

[personal profile] helloween 2023-05-04 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[ His nose still stings where things had snapped. Thanks to whatever Kenos-specific entity has nerfed his power levels, healing it on his own will take a lot of magical resources— enough to risk him reverting back to Lucien and showing Gavial outright. Boo... ]

Yes and no. Lucien and I are one in the same, but obviously, you can fuck me without going to jail. I'm also a sorcerer and he's just a weird kid that likes doing the laundry.

[ Dark's lovely personality shows itself. He lowers his hand so Gavial can assess the damage she'd swung on him. His nose sort of looks like a jelly-filled donut that's been slammed open, bright red blood still theatrically oozing out the nostrils. ]

And my muscles aren't for show, I just don't go around slamming on girls unprovoked.

[ He feels defensive! Someone as fit and hot as she is isn't allowed to go on thinking he's weak sauce. ]
erbe: (143)

[personal profile] erbe 2023-05-04 02:04 pm (UTC)(link)
M-mhmm.

[Somewhere in the back of her head Rin's brain makes the connection. However the pain makes it difficult to really act or acknowledge the realization. Perhaps later, when all this is over, she'll lash out on him. However for now she struggles just to keep herself from crying out.]

It won't fix everything, but... It's the bitter stuff. Smells herbal and a bit resinous like an apothecary.

[She hates it. She hates how much he knows about her now. And that when ever he gets close he'll smell it on her — that medicine. She's been too busy purchasing gems to care about the perfume or scented shampoo she'd use to mask the scent back home.]
helloween: (065🫀)

[personal profile] helloween 2023-05-04 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Come on. [ Dark reaches out to gently push on Rin's shoulder, watching her wobble weakly under his palm when he does. ]

You'll have to describe it a little better than that. Is it a pill, powder... tea? Am I supposed to just go home sniffing around the Blight like a dog or what?

[ He sighs audibly. ]
warmare: (凍った心)

[personal profile] warmare 2023-05-04 02:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[Hayame has only allowed one other to see where her shard was, but it had not been because she'd been willing. A certain god of war had seen the sharp obsidian glistening against her skin in the Hall of Mirrors, when her injuries had left her clothing rent and torn, but she had not pulled it from her body. She had not laid it beside his. She has avoided letting anyone see or touch or know for so long but now...

If she doesn't, the Blight will take her before she can even know if she'll ever make it back to her world. Before she can even try to give up her life to right the wrongs she has done. Those things that she sometimes thinks, no matter how hard she struggles...

His shard is warm in her palm. Her eyes close when he stands to retrieve a weapon more suitable to the task than her own much longer blade, and her fingers curl around the shards as if she still had the strength in her to protect them. She doesn't open her eyes again until she hears him return, and even then... it takes her a moment to focus on him. A swallow makes its way down her throat. Will he be able to feel her, invade her... ? She feels so vulnerable, and she doesn't know if it's just because she's sick, because her shard is out, or-]


... Do it.
erbe: (167)

[personal profile] erbe 2023-05-04 02:40 pm (UTC)(link)
[Reaching out Rin weakly tugs on his hair.]

"Our room," you say! And you don't even both remembering how often I make that. You—!

[Tug! She tugs pathetically on the locks of hair she has in her fist.]

It's not unlike the poison we made. A powder mixed into liquid. It'll be very green instead of colorless when added, though.
helloween: (047🫀)

cw: sexual assault mention

[personal profile] helloween 2023-05-04 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Her tugging doesn't hurt when she's in this state of things, but Dark humors pretending that it does, one hand flying up to the place in his roots where he'd ordinarily hurt if she were up to full strength. ]

You act like I was supposed to know it wasn't gross old people tea...

[ And he wasn't going to judge her. It's certainly not something he nor Lucien would ever hope to ingest. Rin also not being a fan of it humanizes her considerably. It'd smelled like a witch's brew or something. ]

Hang tight here, then. And don't let anyone come in and sexually assault you or anything.

[ This is Dark's first worry while seeing her weak, and it's unfortunately because he's predatorial in nature himself— such thoughts, engraved in him for centuries, don't just evaporate.

He looks around the room and pulls an old curtain out of the corner, tossing it over her head so that she's out of view. Once he's deemed her unassuming enough, he nods at his own work. ]


I'll be back. If you want anything else from the dorm, now's the time to ask.
leicesters: (057)

[personal profile] leicesters 2023-05-04 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
All right. Here goes.

[His eyes move from her to unsheathing his blade. He uses the knifepoint to make a tiny prick on the pad of his index finger, and as the blood begins to bead, he lets it drop onto Hayame's shard. It's absorbed through the crack in the arrowhead, and begins to crystallise inside the shard. Realising it seems to be working, he pricks Hayame's finger next, although she probably can't even feel that tiny nick as it begins to bleed.

The last thing to do is to maintain contact with her. So he sets the knife aside, and takes her free, desperately cold hand in his. Now to wait, and hope it works.]
erbe: (250)

[personal profile] erbe 2023-05-04 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
["Now is the time to ask," when she can barely think and pain sears at the inside of her arm. It feels as if the circuits would burn away her flesh and leave only bone if left to their own devices.

Ugh. And now she's covered like a pet bird set away for the night. At least she has Sakura's shard saved. In fact since she's been so focused on collecting gems she really hasn't had the time to gather or own anything else.]


I'll be here when you get back. Promise.
erbe: (074)

[personal profile] erbe 2023-05-04 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
The body will naturally use foreign energy up first. Like rejecting an implant but without the nasty pus or threat of infection.

[She says this "as-a-matter-of-factly". In fact there are a lot of things that she addresses like that she probably... shouldn't.]
warmare: (慰め)

[personal profile] warmare 2023-05-04 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[She can feel it- his blood inside of her shard. Inside of her. It settles somewhere inside of her, and this time when she shivers... it isn't because she's cold. But there's no stopping now. She may not feel it, but she sees it when blood blossoms on the tip of her finger... and she manages to curl the digit just enough to smear the crimson on the golden crescent of Claude's shard.

He touches her hand so easily. It shames her even now, after all of this. It would almost be easier if he looked at her like she expected, but the condemnation is all in her own head. She can't find it on his face, or in his eyes, and this time... she has his shard in her hand. She can't doubt how he feels with it there.

Gradually, the Blight-frosted color begins to fade from her fingers, which start to curl and twitch as feeling returns, and her breathing begins to ease.]
helloween: (014🫀)

[personal profile] helloween 2023-05-04 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Dark is quicker on the errand than perhaps expected. Returning to the antique shop after maybe 20 minutes despite the distance, he's brought all of the medicine he'd found and collected there. He peels the curtain off of Rin, half expecting her to be sleeping beneath it. What a relief that no one seems to have found her here. ]

Do I mix it with water or?

[ He's like a confused kid in a chemistry class. ]
erbe: (084)

[personal profile] erbe 2023-05-04 03:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[The pain grows. No one finds her not out of an effort to stay hidden, but because even if she grunts or cries there is no one left in this portion of the market. Those who could have evacuated a long time ago, and those who couldn't are either dead or waiting to be rescued.

When Dark pulls away the curtain it seems she's already broken into a light sweat. Her brows furrowed and Rin's teeth worrying at her bottom lip. Hard enough to break the surface and cut a little blood. Rin hisses out her next words.]


Yeah — water, juice — it doesn't matter. I just need to drink it.
leicesters: (111)

[personal profile] leicesters 2023-05-04 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[Claude feels Hayame's blood enter his shard too, and her Blight along with it. It feels unnaturally cold and wrong, and that wrongness seeps into his being, though not enough that it will overcome him. As Hayame slowly returns to normal, though, he can feel his own vitality beginning to wane, strength leaving his limbs, and his face takes on a drained pallor. That doesn't stop him from smiling as he realises she's recovering, though.]

Hey, it's working... How do you feel?

[The question is gentle. She's probably still stewing on this being a humiliation or -- something -- but he doesn't think of it in those terms at all. If anything, he looks genuinely relieved.]
warmare: (夕張と)

[personal profile] warmare 2023-05-04 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[She can't doubt what he's feeling when his shard is in her hand. Even though she wants to, even though she undoubtedly would have fallen back on her instinct to doubt and distrust otherwise... there is no denying it when she's touching his soul. He's relieved, and she cannot find anything lurking behind it.

Hayame waits until she is sure, until the color and numbness has largely faded from her fingers before she finally answers,]


... Better.

[The exhaustion lingers, she had barely slept, yet still... better. She can actually feel the physical weight of his shard in her hand now, not just the mental weight. She would be in his debt, now, he has "saved" her... and it chafes, but-]

... and you?
redsoil: (pic#16220686)

[personal profile] redsoil 2023-05-04 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The relentless pace they had traveled at was born of necessity. The moment they had arrived to the land they resided in ( Stygia, Kenos ), they were in a race against the clock. First, to victory. Second, to power. Soulmates were meant to temper and control the darkness within them, and he feels that he has seen countless others like himself, like Silco, go mad and become little more than slaves to their own madness, left to wander the Labyrinth, without the act of pairing one to another. He will not allow himself to suffer such a fate,

his child is waiting for him to return.

Silco is the best option. He is too angry and hateful, to be concerned with the degree of control they will have over one another. There is a line they can draw between themselves, that will be respected and understood in a way that they can guarantee no other would. ]
No, you do not.

[ you stab them, buddy

It is so cold, though. His hips and knees ache from it, his body shivering — not from the cold atmosphere, but some internal chill that is going to cause him to collapse. If he collapses, the Reapers will come for them. They will put him in chains, they will drag Silco away — and Silco is ( necessary ) ( understandable ) ( useful ) ( like him ) the best option that he has, if he wishes to continue reaching across the boundary to Zenith. To prolong and control the flow of the war between their factions,

their factions? ]


Oh, [ he breathes out, raggedly. Stiffly, his fingers uncurl from Silco's wrist, Set's eyes wide and red, pupil thinned into a cat-like line of punchy shock. ] Oh, no.

[ He reaches for his chest. For the slash of ruddy red Shard that sits over his heart, like a stab wound, a laceration carved across the muscle of his pectoral. Set has always worn his shard so openly, heedless of its fragility. His Shard, for fuck's sake. ]

Silco, [ he slurs the words, wobbling before the other: ] This is not real.
muchalucha: (pic#16414193)

[personal profile] muchalucha 2023-05-04 07:35 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Quetzalcoatl nods with just as warm and sunny of a smile as she continues the work of clearing things away, though she does quickly realize one flaw in her plan… And that is, if she’s moving things out of the way, it doesn’t exactly give her much freedom to do anything else. ]

Hey, and if you hear or see something, let me know, yes? I can move things out of the way, but that’s kind of it for now, right?

[ He’s not only a pebble-pusher…!! But she would be just as happy for that too, really. All effort is important in her book. ]

Ah, and I’m Quetzalcoatl, by the way! It’s a strange way to meet people, but at least it’s while doing something good.
erbe: (228)

CW: mention of body horror bugs

[personal profile] erbe 2023-05-04 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[Useless. It's useless, isn't it? No amount of magic seems to be able to prevent this. Tears well up at the corners of Rin's eyes as panic takes her. She hasn't felt this helpless since the death of her father — since Kirei presented her with the Azoth blade that should have been given to her by her father. Useless. A mage of her caliber sitting, useless, as a young girl screams in pain as her body betrays her.

Tohsaka's stomach flips. Was Sakura in this same amount of pain when she trained in that "workshop"? Was she writhing and screaming just like this when the worms overtook her body and burrowed inside her? The thought makes Rin falter, and she has to bite her lip to hold back the feeling of wanting to wretch.

One hand leaves the jewel attempting to numb Sieglinde's nerves, and grabs her hand. Rin grabs her hand and holds it tight. Bringing the knuckles up to her forehead as she hunches over the young girl's tiny body.]


I'm sorry, [She whispers. Something that Sieglinde might miss. She's sorry. She cannot help this or stop this and she does not know why.]
erbe: (062)

[personal profile] erbe 2023-05-04 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[Tohsaka has no choice. Caster's energy stores are too great, and Rin has to fall back. She gets within speaking distance of Gray — her back turned to the other girl at first.]

Are you all right? That dress doesn't—

[Rin turns, and that was a mistake. The flaxen hair shines gold in the low light. Different from the platinum that set her apart from Saber and Mordred. Her breath catches in her throat, and her eyes cannot peel away from the sight before her. That face, that hair... in a foreign dress and weak at the knees.

The only thing that gets Rin to throw up a barrier in time is Caster's laughter echoing through the church.]
leicesters: (022)

[personal profile] leicesters 2023-05-04 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
If you're good, then I'm good.

[Which is a blatant lie, when he can't hide much of anything from her right now, but he doesn't mean it literally. Rather, if she's recovering, he's reassured all this will have been worth it. The Blight siphoning from her and into him has also made being held by her a lot less unpleasant now, too.]

I'll just take the mother of all naps later and I'll be good to go.

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