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

[baltimores]

[ He is lumbering along the root-infested road, hunched over and hugging himself as he puts one foot in front of the other, when Amos hears yelling. It takes another moment for it to click in his brain-fogged mind that someone is yelling at him, not just in general, the sounds of it growing closer as the body carrying the voice does.

So he stops. Slowly turns around, still a little curled in on himself, arms still wrapped over one another and hugging his torso, as though that's doing anything. Maybe it is? The faint bit of pressure he can put on himself physically, the warmth—

Okay it's not doing anything. Lethargically Amos lets his arms fall to his sides, takes a deep breath as he works to straighten himself back up. Can finally tell that it's Atsumu coming after him and oh, shit, what did he fuck up now? ]

Hey. [ His voice is just loud enough to reach him, but rough otherwise. Fuck, he really does want to go back to his place and curl up next to his forges or some shit. ] Did I forget something back there?

[ He doesn't think he did, but also, why else would Atsumu be chasing after him?? ]

[settingup]

[ By the time Atsumu comes to a stop in front of Amos, his breathing is heavy, though years of intense exercise means he doesn't look much worse for the wear other than that. His physical state is one thing, but his emotional state is another matter entirely. Atsumu's brows are knit together in agitation as he looks disbelievingly at Amos asking him a question that fucking casual, considering--

Atsumu's gaze snaps down to Amos' hand taking in the frost-bitten look to his fingers, before he looks back at the man's face with growing disbelief. ]

Yeah, yourself. The hell are you doin' leavin' medical care when you're the one who needs it the most?

[ Not that there is any real cure for the Blight, or that the people inside that clinic could really do anything to help Amos, but still... ]

[baltimores]

[ Wait, what?

It takes nothing more than a blink for the confusion to be spelled out across Amos' face, and for a moment it displaces how miserable he feels. For a moment he forgets that he feels like shit, that he just wants to go to sleep and only wake up when this will all be over — and then it settles back in on him, the meaning of Atsumu's words jolting him back to reality once he actually absorbs them.

His eyes slip shut again for a moment longer. He inhales. It feels like his lungs are burning with something freezing. He opens his eyes. ]

The moment something falls apart in your hands, you know you're too fucked up. I got too fucked up. So it's the safer play for everyone else if I get out of there, try to ride it out on my own.

[ If riding it out is even an option. He doesn't know. Still, he says it all simply, like it's the most obvious thing in the world — why wouldn't he leave? If he's gone then he isn't a burden, has less of a chance of fucking things up for everyone else.

Obviously. ]

[settingup]

[ Self-sacrifice has never been an ideal that Atsumu has subscribed to. Sure, he'll push himself to his limits in order to get stronger, and he'll do it in ways that can benefit others too, but he's not dying for anyone else. So the mentality of people like Amos, who aren't ready to kick up a big fuss and demand that someone help him out when things are dire is baffling to him. If Atsumu is helping someone out in a way that puts him at risk, the person better be grateful, and make sure that risk stays minimal for him.

Which means Amos better be damn grateful for the plan forward that's starting to percolate in Atsumu's head.

Before he can make an offer though, his expression is going to go cold in the more menacing and less temperature related way. ]

Ride it out on your own?

[ There's a scoff in his tone. ]

That ain't gonna work out well for you. You know that, right?

[baltimores]

[ He... doesn't think he's ever seen Atsumu look like that before. It's more than enough to give Amos pause. To make him stop thinking ahead and listen — really listen — to what Atsumu has to say, because this is someone who isn't asking to be heard but is demanding it, and Amos is in no position to resist or argue or any of that shit.

So he has his full attention. Confusion crosses his face at first, followed up by something dumbfounded, and then culminating in a dropped head, the mark of acceptance by someone who has just been effectively shamed. ]

Yeah. Probably. [ He's resigned, weary. Amos has to fight to lift his head back up, to meet Atsumu's eyes again, but he does it. ] But at least if I'm sequestered away then I can't hurt anyone. It's not the worst tradeoff. I can handle it.

[ What else can he do? It's not like he can think to pick up what Atsumu might be on the start of putting down. It makes way more sense to be an animal crawling off to the woods to die alone than to do much more of anything else.

Right? ]

[settingup]

[ It both is and isn't a strange experience for Atsumu right now. On one hand, he is incredibly used to the feeling of chewing someone out for some decision they made he thinks is stupid, or a perceived poor performance or flaw. On the other, however, all those people have been his own age. He's mouthed off to adults before, usually his parents, and usually regretted it almost immediately. He's never gotten away with giving someone older a dressing down like this, and having them accept it.

It makes him feel weird, and his expression wavers for a second by the time Amos is looking back up at him. Some people naturally have a more aggressive and authoritative bent to them, and some don't. It's naturally regardless of age, but he's still young enough that he's stumbling his way through life figuring out these lessons here and there.

If he's got the power to shame Amos though, to make him feel some sort of kicked-dog guilt for his behavior, then he should have the power to make him wise up and make a better choice right.

Right... Maybe.

Atsumu holds his hand out into the air between them, palm up and expression fixing into something stern, the momentary hesitation gone. ]

Or you can do something that ain't stupid as hell, and get some help fixin' your problem.

[ Fixing might not be the right word for it, but at the very least the symptoms can be eased. ]

[baltimores]

[ Amos really is a shitty excuse for an adult sometimes. That, and on some level he knows that Atsumu is right, that Amos is acting irrationally. That level of knowledge is mostly drowned out by how crap he feels, but it's still there. And it helps that they result in the same thing: acquiescence.

So he stares at that hand offered to him before looking up into Atsumu's eyes, his own still filled with confusion. What. What is happening.

When it clicks as to what is happening, his eyes widen, staring back at Atsumu's hand. At what he knows he's offering. And Amos could say something absolutely fucking stupid, like are you sure, but Atsumu wouldn't be offering if he didn't mean it. He could say some shit like but you're a kid; it isn't your job to look out for me, it's mine to look out for you, but he's already ceded that ground, hasn't he.

Instead, Amos reaches for his side. Under his coat, towards his hip. They're gonna need blood then, right? So he's unsheathing the dagger Yima gave him months ago, something that is almost always on his person, because this is the quickest and easiest way to do it. It doesn't occur to him that they're outside and technically in public (for whatever little of public still remains); Amos is the type of person who recognizes what's inevitable and would rather skip to the end as soon as possible.

He holds the dagger out to Atsumu, giving him the option to take it — or. ]

Just a prick of your finger'll do it. I can do it for you if you don't want to, though.

[ Because for as tough and decisive as Atsumu is currently — and, you know what, there is plenty of respect to be had there — he still is just a kid, who played volleyball, and doesn't want to work in a machine shop, so, you know, he might not want to gently stab himself at all, even if he is offering this solution to Amos.

So if they're going to do this, he can do the hard part for the both of them. It's fine. Probably better than everything else he's feeling right now, at least. ]

[settingup]

[ "Are you sure" would usually be an insulting and entirely unnecessary question, but it's one that Atsumu doesn't have a great answer for right now. Is he sure? As sure as he's ever going to be about doing something he knows will leave him vulnerable, which is so say not sure at all.

Is he going to go through with it though regardless of that fact? Absolutely. For all his many, many, many... many faults, Atsumu's usually pretty decent about following through on offers, silent though they may be. He'll attempt to lie his way out of trouble from time to time, but he won't usually make false promises.

But if he's going to do this, then he wants to at least look mildly cool before he turns useless almost immediately after. He's reaching out to carefully grab the blade, ironically making sure not to cut himself as he lifts it out of Amos' hand. ]

I can do it. It's just like a really shitty paper cut.

[ Which hurt like hell, but he's a regular guy who has sliced his hand open in all sorts of stupid ways prior to this. He's shifting the knife into his less dominant hand, as he reaches under his shirt to root around for something and--

Out pops his hand holding a perfectly spherical looking shard with a golden tinted pearlescent sheen to it. ]