The Seeds of Unrest, Phase Two 🌱

[beleos]

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

Comments

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[goldendeceiver]

[ There are people in both cities that need a lot of help, and Ernesto has been doing his best to split his time in the interest of fairness, and to not look like he's favoring one faction or another. Unlike Gavial who has a very real need to use her Arts, Ernesto's limited Arts abilities aren't going to come in hand much here.

Some common sense to curb the worst of his recklessness, and enough strength to carry around a civilian looking worse for the wear is about all he needs. Maybe not a lot of help to someone who can heal someone like magic, but--

Oh...? Well, maybe more help than he realized, as he pauses after helping the woman he brought in down onto the cot. ]

Not sure how much more help I'll be, but I can give it a go.

[kinaesthesia]

You’d be surprised how useful an extra pair of hands can be.

[And with as quickly as they sometimes have to move in situations like this, anyone willing to help out can do a lot of good too. Her attention is solely on looking over the woman’s wounds. She’ll need to stay off that ankle, but it should heal alright once they get it set. The wound on her side, though…

Without glancing over at Ernesto, she motions with a hand over to a long table sitting along the inner wall of the tent that's set up with a lot of their supplies.]

There should be some stuff we can use to make a splint for her, over on the right. And down below that should be a couple of crates, one of them should have some cloth bandages. Grab ‘em for me, wouldja?

[goldendeceiver]

[ So it's that kind of help she needs, is it? Well... this sort of thing Ernesto can manage just fine. He never trained in medicine, but you see people having to put together makeshift splints or tourniquets all the time in the middle of a fight. More often than that, Ernseto saw the army working with what supplies they had to patch up the men after a fight though.

Grabbing supplies and bringing them over to the good doc is an easy enough task, and probably a good breather from hauling full sized humans around. ]

Got it.

[ And indeed he does, snagging the stiff material for the splint off the table while simultaneously pushing the crate further out from under the table to make it easier to reach into. ]

Probably not the most sterile now that I've touched them, of course, but...

[ He's got the goods in his hands, and he's gladly handing them back over to Gavial. ]