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]

[ Oh. Oh, that's what's going on with her feet; that's why she needs an escort or a manservant or a taxi or whatever. Seems like a really fucked choice to impose on a kid, actually — she gave them up herself implies she had a choice, but considering the magnitude of consequence and her age, did she really? No wonder she seems like she's grown up too fast — but that's neither here nor there, so the thought has to be relegated to the back of his mind. In the here and now, they are en route to help people; in the here and now, she is also vulnerable.

He glances down at her before returning his eyes to the road, hospital now within sight on the horizon. ]

Yeah, probably. [ He swallows, discomfort probably evident in his voice. It's gone when he continues. ] I mean, there'll be ways to defend yourself. Magic that can shield you, ranged attacks... You're in a tougher spot than most, but you can still keep yourself safe. Just gives you another layer of safety is all, if you don't inadvertently hold your shard out to people like that.

[ It just seemed kinda... Shit, if his shard was on his hand he wouldn't be doing it, and he can fight back pretty easily.

He steps over another out of place root, the hospital growing bigger in their lines of sight the faster they approach it. ]

We can go gloves shopping when this is all over, if you want. Most people wore them where I'm from when treating people. Might find something you like, anyway.

cw: foot binding

[grunehexin]

[He glances down, and for an instant, she almost tries to hide her feet beneath the hem of her dress. "Giving up her legs" was a euphemism at its best. The tiny heeled shoes she wears are a mere three or so inches long, and the shape of the foot jammed into them is obscenely wrong, the arch snapped and shoved upwards, the toes folded under to form a sharper point, the heel pulled inward. There was surely no way it could have been done without great pain, and what child would ask to have her feet broken? To live her live mincing about, incapable of running, playing...

Sieglinde Sullivan apparently had. So she won't hide her feet. They were the proof of the great duty she had inherited, the work she had been entrusted with. She should be proud of them. (But sometimes-)]

Sebastian taught me that people of the Outside World preferred handshakes as greetings, but perhaps now... I will have to take your advice and risk being seen as ill-mannered instead.

[A beat later, she thinks to add,]

I did ask that raven fellow to instruct me in the shield spell. I have never practiced such overt magic, but... if I am lucky, perhaps there will be little cause to use it.

[She did not plan to take a position on the front lines if a battle were to erupt... The only thing she feared more than failure in her duty was becoming a hindrance, and if she could simply support Zenith's cause from the background... Yet she had already been unlucky, with her shard, and so perhaps the time for relying on luck had already long passed. The hospital is closer now, her gaze settles on it with resolve... but she is distracted just a bit by the idea of shopping (which she misinterprets a little bit, as only a child from a remote village could).]

- there are places full of gloves we could visit? An entire shop for them?

[baltimores]

[ The thing is he's pretty sure whoever did that to her, to her feet, is already dead, so there won't be any making sure they can't do it to anyone else again. Any role he could have possibly had there is over before it could begin; now all there is is making sure she stays safe for as long as they inhabit the same world. Until she grows up, is better able to see to her needs — and maybe even then.

Not like Amos hasn't known anyone disabled before. Mobility's a new one for him, but. Either way. His worries are somewhat eased at knowing that she at least knows how to shield herself; it's just less the whole... potentially inviting unnecessary danger on herself by being so upfront about where her shard is thing.

The rest of the road ahead is clear, the hospital mercifully untouched from this side. It gives him the opportunity to look at her again — no smile on his face, but a muted sort of fondness anyway. A warmth, because she's a kid, because it really shows in her voice at that last question, and because he wants this for her. ]

Sometimes, yeah. Springstar's got more selection, but they're probably a lot cheaper and more prone to falling apart. Here there'll probably be a stall in the markets that'll have some good ones. Or if not, there'll be someone we could commission to make a pair for you. [ Well, technically, it should probably be Sebastian doing any commissioning, but... yeah he's simple enough when it comes to child welfare that Amos would pay out of his own pocket if she needed him to. ] It's not like you gotta cut out handshakes altogether if you don't want to. You could just use your other hand. Or wait until you got gloves.

[ A beat, as they come up to the hospital's entrance; the calm outside before the storm that's surely waiting for them inside. ]

I just don't want to see you get hurt is all.

[ It really is that simple. ]