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

[zauneyete]

[ It's predictable, that when Quetz called out to him, he offered her something of a tip of his head, a too-open eye staring right at her, when he smirked, as if what she said was funny. He was, after all, merely human, and had far too often in Kenos encountered creatures that were too strong, too great, and far more powerful than he could ever imagine for himself. Even summoning a sword was ludicrous to a man who had lived for his entire life in a small, underground city that was like Zaun.

He had learned to live with this discomfort and use what he had. People could call him a coward all they wanted, but he was a small, weak man, who had used whatever power at his disposal to become the equivalent to a king in the undercity, and that made him powerful. Taking it personally was of course in his nature -- but when he had the upper hand? -- Never. His fingers around the knife, he watched, one hand itching just to pull a cigar out to smoke while the shimmered person finished her off, his mind mostly on controlling the shimmered person, doing the heavy lifting for him.

Though, his concentration meant that the sword wasn't clocked until it was nearly upon him. He turned away, tried to move, but he's slow compared to the rest of them, and it cleaved a deep gash into his arm, and he hissed, reaching up to slap at the wound with his free hand. ]

-Gah -- Get her!

[ He barked, his fingers clasped around the wound, though he didn't intend to spend much time letting her try that again.

He nudged the Shimmered person with his power, commanded them to try and grab her, and hold her this time, his very intention lie in that injured arm, where there was still a knife clasped in his hand, held tight. ]

[muchalucha]

[ Whatever satisfaction she might feel for at least drawing blood is dampened significantly by pain that comes when she’s slammed into the ground. She’s stunned as the air is forced out of her and pain shoots through her body. It’s only made worse as she shifts and feels the sharp, white-hot feeling of broken ribs shifting that makes her groan.

However, as their hand tightens on her throat, she’s quicker to break out of that daze. She scrabbles in their grip, and her finely manicured hands grab at their wrist and try to dig in and twist with the force to break, but the strength isn’t there, and even that hurts. Her pale, frostbitten fingers scream at the exertion, and she gasps as the grip tightens and further restricts her airway.

But as satisfying as that might for Silco for the irony of it, she still has just enough strength to try and escape that hold. She chokes out a noise of pain, and it sounds wetter now for the blood in her mouth, since it hurts to do this, but she’s athletic and limber enough to swing her legs up. She wraps her legs around their arm in a leg lock so that it’s really only her shoulders on the ground and squeezes as she bears down pressure. It makes her scream both with the visceral exertion of it and just how it shifts the broken bones, but she doesn’t relent.

The Shimmered picks her up this way to slam her back down again, but as they lose the leverage of pushing down, she pulls one leg harder, and there’s a snap at the elbow. Not broken like she’d hoped, but dislocated. They yell in return and slam her back again once, then twice, until finally with a sputtering cough, she releases the hold and collapses back onto the ground, breathing hard.

With the elbow out of place, it’s harder for them to apply that suffocating strength, but they at least know better this time. They move to press down on her legs to prevent her from using them again, but honestly, she doesn’t think she has that in her for a second round. Quetzalcoatl is breathing hard, and though she doesn’t have much in the way of external wounds, she can feel the internal injuries. Without a mage to assist her, she’s not going to last long.

And at this point, she’s not paying attention to Silco at all. Honestly, with her view being blocked, she’s assuming he ran after giving the order. ]

[zauneyete]

[ That's really her mistake, though it's not an illogical one. If Silco had been newer to this world, weaker, or hadn't lived through enough, he probably would have run. It wasn't like he hadn't made a habit of running in the past, and had plenty of times, when he thought he didn't have the upper hand -- probably would have, if he thought that Quetz was going to kill him.

That sword had dug deep, though. He could feel the cut bleeding, soaking his shirt, and the coat over it. He would have a scar there -- as if he didn't have enough -- but he wasn't going to let that hold him back from finishing this job. This Meri had decided to interfere with his plan -- was it sabotage? Yeah, it was, but that didn't matter, and she'd insulted him more by trying to pity him earlier. If anything could be said for Silco, it was that he hated being pitied, more than he hated being looked on with disdain.

He shifted his knife in his hand, tested the movement -- no tendons were cut, thankfully, and watched the shimmered fight it out with her, watched her try to snap its arm with her thighs -- truly, Sevika would have loved this -- and he started to move.

He wasn't the one being threatened now, and though he took a few steps back, it's not until it looks like he is running, the way he is backing up, that he can feel the power he's trying to use settle back in, and he's out of sight.

Which really, that is what Silco wants, and he neared again, quick steps as the Shimmered pressed down on her legs to hold her down, and Silco smiled. All of that power, all of that pity, and it's wasted on someone who can get backup any time he wants. Silco approached, his feet silent, invisible, knife in hand, he lashed out once close enough. Unnoticed, it's easy to sneak up, when someone is distracted.

He stabbed downward, toward her, aiming for fatality, but of course, there's plenty of activity and thrashing happening, but as his invisibility starts to fade, Silco smiled. It's an ugly thing, mean, too jubilant, and he tried to dig the knife into wherever it landed. ]

Got distracted.

[ He tutted, like the weather was poor. ]

[muchalucha]

[ Her legs getting pinned is predictable ( it’s what she would have done), but she still twists and tries to free herself all the same. There’s a desperation to it, since she’s thoroughly pinned this time, and even as she digs her nails in deep enough to draw blood, the Shimmered isn’t cowed by her attempts. Still, she’d fight to the last. At this point, she’s sure that they’ll kill her, but she doesn’t fear that. No proud god of the Aztecs would.

She expects an impact, though. Another slam into the ground, a punch, a kick, something brutal to match how they’ve fought so far. She doesn’t expect the knife at all as it sinks into the space between her ribs, jutting upwards to pierce a lung. She cries out in surprise as much as pain, and blood immediately pools out. It’s slow and more viscous than it should be with the wound, but it doesn’t matter. Right away, she knows it’s fatal. And cowardly, which is the real insult here.

She stops struggling in the Shimmered’s grip and scratching at them, and instead, she’s quick to lash out and grab a tight fistful of the front of Silco’s clothing and yank him down further. It pushes the knife so that it tears into her more, but it will just hasten her dissipation. Her voice comes out raspy and wet, but even laying here pinned and bleeding out, she grins with all of those shark-like teeth on full display. ]

Never, rudo.

[ She’s still pinned, unable to do much in the way of actually striking out at Silco, luckily for him. But that cruel, smug smile in the face of winning unfairly tells her more than enough about who he is. Weak, cowardly, and most of all, proud despite that. She can’t get in a punch or a kick, but she can be petty too.

So, with all that blood pooling in her mouth, she spits at him, right in his face. ]

[zauneyete]

[ There are many problems that comes with being someone like Silco. Sure, he's small, weak, and has to compensate by being cowardly, running when things get too tough, or using his invisibility to get close, and stab when he's not noticed. Silco had never been the strongest, or even frankly the smartest -- there were men like Vander, and Singed, for things like that. No, but he was opportunistic. He would always take the opportunity if offered, and it's evidenced, when Quetz pulled him in, and his knife dug in deeper --

By instinct, he twisted it, just to make it hurt more, to make it sink in deeper, to make it hurt.

Though the downside, really, is that when she spit in his face, he can close one eye, but the other...

Flecks of blood swim in his unbroken vision, and he cannot blink them away, and cannot let go, but he can sneer down at her, his lips curled into a smile, though his stare is impassive. ]

A last desperate action, lashing out pitifully when you've run out of fight.

[ He leaned forward, closer, pushed the knife in, so the hilt pressed against her skin. ]

I've been where you are. The difference is, that I know when to run and fight another day. Perhaps this is the day I teach you a lesson.

[ He twisted the knife again, hoping that this time it would be done with. ]

[muchalucha]

[ It hurts as the knife digs in and twists, but it’s nothing new for her. Pain, sacrifice, they’re just part of the legends that she resides in. To become the sun, she had thrown herself into a great fire and immolated herself. She had fought and warred with Tezcatlipoca, both as an enemy and an ally. The world needed blood and life, whether a god’s or humanity’s.

As Silco digs the knife in to the hilt, she can only gasp feebly, unable to respond as blood fills her lung and she feels the magical energy that sustains her rapidly decrease. Her greenstone eyes stay locked on his mismatched ones, but her grip on his shirt relaxes as she loses strength. She can’t speak, so she listens, and though there’s still a fire in her that’s all the wrath of a storm that Silco will see one day… She’s still the god that loves humanity. Eventually striking him down wouldn’t change that.

Because in what they had talked about when they first met, in these vicious, bitter words to her, she sees his tlatlacolli clearly.

He twists the knife one last time, and she takes a final, sputtering breath, but that vicious smile has softened, and it’s an expression he’s left to interpret. Her hand falls from gripping at him to lay limply at her side, but only a moment or two after, it’s not the normal progression of how someone slips to death. She’s not human, after all. As suddenly as if a switch were flipped, her body simply turns to golden motes of light that rapidly drift away and disappear. Both Silco and the Shimmered’s weight will shift as there’s suddenly not anyone to bear down upon, but there’s a small, melodic clink as the green gem that had been underneath her lips falls to the ground through that golden light.

It’s probably then—when she’s no longer a threat—that he realizes it. His eye doesn’t hurt as it normally does, similarly to how Shimmer keeps it under control. After all, her blood wasn’t just blood. It was the catalyst that had once given life. She had bled herself onto bones of the people of previous Suns to create humanity and give them their life in the Fifth Sun. It may no longer be capable of such miracles in Kenos, but the blood of a Creator god retains just the tiniest fragment of that power despite. ]

[redsoil]

[ — they do not share an Aspect, they are no closer than two Harmonized Meridian to one another, but divine seeks divine. An ocean parts their lands and lineages, but in this world, Set can feel the faint presence of Quetzalcoatl wherever he goes; she is warm, like the sunlight that tumbles from her laughter and pours through the golden wave of her hair. She is warm, in the way that his own grandmother's presence is, although arguably she is a little more jovial, a little less given to pureness of emotional and psychological neutrality ( that he knows of ). When her essence fades, snapped at the base like a flower that's been plucked,

he knows of it.

( All he can see, at first, is the Shimmered zombie. The ground quakes as he drags a hand through it and summons up something, sleek and pale-golden, with a lean maw and a forked tail that darts and weaves across the ground in pursuit of what he thinks is the slavering thing that has felled Quetzalcoatl, that could still threaten her existence if it snaps up her shard. The sand-born sha howls, the sound akin to a wailing woman, a girl shrilling her agony to the world, a fox baying in the darkness like a shrieking mother — and collides with Silco's zombie. )

In its wake, the god of war trails. His step stuttering only briefly as he sees the other, the disheveled, too-skinny baron of the chem-dens and underground, lightless places. Immediately, as his hunting 'hound' wrestles with the leg of Silco's zombie, Set smiles — happy, bright, clever — below the dark line of his divine helm. ]

— hm-mi-nA, Silco! She must have been on her last legs, for you to triumph!

[zauneyete]

[ Silco pulled heaving breaths, his heart pounded so hard in his chest he thought it would burst out, from the adrenaline of the fight. The moment her smile started to soften, he wanted to do it again, and again, and Again. How dare she look at him like that -- like he was to be pitied. (Whether or not she really did, didn't matter to the man, who had imagined a reality where her words before meshed with the person now, and a softened smile was one of pity disdain.) He barely noticed the motes of life, instead he looked for her shard -- wondered if he could crush it beneath his heel before it became a problem -- but there was something...

Set would find Silco, crouched on the ground, an ungloved hand (his left) over his eye -- the one that never closed -- and his shoulders shake from the half-laugh that escaped his lips. Silco had been self-medicating for over a decade, his eye always hurt to the point that it was simply a fact. Even his own self-medication from Shimmer could only go so far, but ...

Had it been her blood? He couldn't blink away the blood from his vision, but Set's voice echoed over his own... surprised laugh, and he didn't even spare a thought for the bystander that was very likely dead.

Oh well. Wrong place, wrong time. It happened to everyone. ]

Set.

[ He greeted -- a quick redirection to the usual control, as he stood, and pulled a kerchief out of his pocket to wipe the blood off of his knife. Perhaps someone could do something with it? Or did it lose its divinity immediately? he hardly knew. ]

Her foolishness was my gain, of course. She decided to attack me while Blighted. More fool her, hm?

[ She had been strong enough, that he did not doubt that she would kill him. Good enough reason to not frequent Springstar, as if he didn't avoid it already. ]

[redsoil]

I would not go as far as to paint her a fool. Her judgment was sound, after all — even Blighted, she would have taken your head off.

[ At least Silco recognizes that Quetzalcoatl loves everyone; her heart is grand and warm, and her bloodthirst equally powerful. Like him, she is a creature of extreme dichotomy — her love for people and her ability to massacre them are not mutually exclusive, as his loathing for people and his ability to protect them are not, either. He gives a nod towards the man's face, where he covers his own extreme injury, the scars upon him. ]

It was smart to use someone to distract her, but I doubt it will work again.

[ Next to Silco, his zombie is being dragged around by the leg — the sand-colored sha shaking its head like a dog, before letting the Shimmered zombie go. It waits for it to crawl to its feet, and leaps upon it again; it's a particularly sadistic (cat-like) way of toying with what must amount to prey for it. For Set.

He approaches the other man, drawing his hand away from the fall of his headdress. Instead of simply reaching down to Silco, he crouches. And then offers his hand, from the ground — as naturally as if they were truly equals. In the moment he does, a patch of sand bleeds from his toes and spreads across the ground to gather the green, gleaming gem up into the depths of his body. ( Quetzalcoatl's warmth fills him, her exceptionally dense soul settling into his form like something obscene. ) ]

— I will be taking her Shard, though. You understand.

[zauneyete]

Hm? Oh --

[ Silco barely offered a glance toward the shimmered, before he shrugged. ] Wrong place, wrong time. It happens to us all eventually. He did little to resist my commands, either. I doubt he is a great loss to your side.

[ Which... probably was one of the reasons why Quetz looked down at him, he supposed. He was not the type to care about the little people, unless they were a "mass" of people. Even Zaunites were not useful as individuals -- but as a wave... they could have wrecked Piltover with the right circumstances. It's a true tragedy that they were not allowed or able to become what they should have been.

Though, what's gone is gone, as he told Quetz. He refuses to look back toward them. There's only one person from his past that he desperately looked back toward -- though... that was, perhaps a special case.

At least, that's what Silco told himself. However, he also liked to say that he's let the past die, and this man has never let go of anything in his life. ]

I suppose... [ He said, his eyes searching for the shard that had clinked to the ground only moments before. ] I can't convince you to let me take it anyway?

[redsoil]

I am sure someone will mourn him.

[ Which, is about the most considerate thing Set has the ability to say. He already knows that Kenos's war will cost them, in people and in Shard-bearers, and he is no stranger to the writhing, teeming mass of agonized souls that will await their restitution in the afterlife. He has seen them, after all. He has torn open the sand and looked into the river of Duat, to the teeming, hateful-mourning-confused mass of those who had lost their lives due to war ( to him ). He knows that which he must bear the burden of, whether they reached Duat or not.

Such as the women, who weep within his soul, who scream and suffer within the miasma of the curse upon his wrist. Someone will mourn Silco's zombie. At the end of the Oracle event, Set will even be the one to lay that man's spirit to rest. And he will know what it feels like, to die the death of that man and be Shimmered. ]

Not this time, no. She and I have much to do, and I cannot ask anyone else to fill in for her. You made a bit of a mistake, [ still, he sounds fond. ] I will try to talk her out of eradicating you. It would not do to lose you so soon.

[zauneyete]

[ Silco barked a laugh, almost manic in the spike of it. ]

It would not be the first time I spit in the eye of my betters.

[ The tail comes with bite, the spiteful sound of a man who knows what that means, and does not care. The kind of man who hates to be told such things, hates to be reminded of such things, and defiantly stands against it, with full pride that he would spit in the eye of fate if he had to. He was thought of as nothing -- or so he thought -- and so he railed against it. Spiteful, hateful, and proud to do so. ]

I would like to see her really try. I've already stood against plenty of beings who remembered me, and wanted to smother me.

I will not stand to be eradicated, no matter how powerful.

[ Set, this is your skrunkly. Even now, he is defiant. ]

[redsoil]

Oh, no. You misunderstand. Quetzalcoatl will not eradicate you by strength of arm.

[ She could, Set knows. She is a god as ancient as he, storied and empowered beyond even that which he can scent upon her, but she is like his grandmother. Ra was unstoppable, a woman who could not be turned away from her chosen path — which was why Osiris had taken the throne of the gods from her, and sat upon it himself. ( It was Osiris, correct? It was he who had curried so much favor among the humans that it had carried him to the thrones of man, and god alike? )

The green gem, Quetzalcoatl's soul, emerges from his palm and is caught up between his fingers. Displayed, so that Silco knows it has already been seized; that Set is sly, too. Swift, as well. He beams, from under the edge of his mask, as his sha finishes toying with the Shimmered corpse and slinks around Silco's knees, rubbing along them like some ethereal feline. ]

She rivals you, in strength of absolute will. I believe your desire to hate all things has found a worthy rival in her desire to love all things. I cannot wait to see your clash in the future. Which force will prove more powerful?

[ another microcosm of battle opens before him,

happy set, content war god ]

[zauneyete]

[ Silco does not jump back from the Sha, though he looked down at it with the same ire he had for his own pet, Trencher, who sometimes did that as if it were seeking affection from a petulant child, though Silco occasionally pat the creature's head, the Sha gets none of that. He only spared one glance for the now dead shimmered, a shame that he was dead, but -- that was his fate the moment Silco touched his fingers to him.

Most were fodder for him, to be used. They would all end up dead anyway, when it came down to it. When this resolved in the end, they would all die. Might as well use them for his purposes now. ]

Mine, obviously.

[ He said, though he did not truly know. Even he felt trepidation at blowing in the nose of a god, even if he thought that she could not truly be too godlike, if she had fallen to the Blight so easily. ]

Perhaps we'll pit them against one another a few times, until the end. I'm sure you'll be delighted.