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

[warmare]

[She doesn’t seem to begrudge his hand- or rather, she is too exhausted herself to be as ashamed over how lewd it is, that lingering touch. She forgets, too, about the loosened binding on her breasts and her general disheveled appearance, her long black mane tousled and unkept from “sleep”. It was hard to care about her body when the soul was parted from it.

And how she hated it- the reminder that they were reduced to hunks of rock. That the body she’d trained so hard, the only thing in her life that had even almost been her own… was just some shell now. That even as a shell the shape of it kept her apart from so many others.]

… and then the cycle will continue.

[Is that how they’re supposed to survive? Just passing the Blight from one to another? Her gaze falls back down to the shards in her unheld hand, to the bit of blood that had been absorbed. It is clearer in his golden hued crescent- the drop of crimson that had come from her. Would it linger? Was there some foul payment yet to be extracted?

Her thumb rubs gently over the surface of the golden shard, as if just trying to make sure she couldn’t just wipe that drop of blood away.]

[leicesters]

[Claude doesn't mind how dishevelled she looks, and the thought simply crosses his mind that she looks as beautiful as ever. He's sure he looks not much better with his unruly curly hair still fully in Bedhead Mode before he tames it for the day, and his half-buttoned shirt rumpled. He really did just roll out of bed (or rather, the chair he slept in for lack of a bed) and went to check on Hayame first thing.]

Yeah. But it's a cycle that buys us more ti-- me...?

[His thought stutters and cuts off when he realises she's touching his shard. Of course, the blood has long since sunk into the shard and crystallised. What he's left with is something that feels... surprisingly gentle, for her. He never expected her to treat any part of him, much less his soul, with such care, when he was sure he tended to do little more than make her angry.

He swallows and continues.]

I mean, it's better than the alternative.

[warmare]

[The alternative. The one where they all just slowly die of the Blight one by one, all because the leaders of Zenith and Meridian just had to send people to that gods damned frozen island. Hayame almost curses them aloud, nearly expresses a lack of hope (again), but instead…

She rubs her thumb once more over the golden crescent. There’s no coming out for her blood now, though, and she looks upon the two shards in her hand with a somewhat unreadable expression before she finally moved that hand to winnow her fingers between the collapsing bindings to refix the arrowhead-like obsidian one between her breasts. Once it is back where is belongs (as if there was anything natural about them having shards at all)…]

You were a fool to offer me this like you did.

[She holds his out to him, palm up.]

[leicesters]

[She touches his shard a second time, and he can't hide the full-body shiver it gives him, but it's still not unpleasant. Just... unfamiliar. He trusts her, and he knows for certain now that she won't hurt him.

Well, with anything other than words, anyway. He laughs a little to try to hide how uncharacteristically flustered he feels, carefully taking his shard and holding it up to the light, the red clearly visible now tinged in the gold.]

If being a fool means saving your life, I'll take that as some very high praise.

[He reaches to the back of his neck, puts the shard back in its place. Even such a small gesture feels like it takes a lot more effort than normal, his tired limbs aching with the movement.]

[warmare]

[That is definitively not what those words were intended to be, and yet of course he says them. She cannot even be surprised any longer. Hayame does watch him replace the shard closely, though.]

And now that you have saved it, what do you demand of me?

[She wonders if he will say something noble, as if she owed him nothing- even though surely they both knew that was not true. It was why she was so selective in the first place… over who might offer her help. To take it was to incur debt.

And she did not wish to be in anyone’s debt. Not anymore.]

[leicesters]

Ooh, the great Hayame owing me a favour?

[He's usually the type to think of the advantage he can gain over others, but in this case, it truly hadn't occurred to him until she said it. She's not a rival or an enemy, just as he'd said, so he was unlikely to think of her in those terms.

But if it will help her feel like the exchange is more equal...]

How about the next time I need help, I'll call on you, and we'll consider the debt repaid. [He realises even as he says it that it's a suspiciously broad statement, so he elaborates.] Don't worry, it won't be anything like making you risk your life for me, since that would kind of defeat the purpose of today.

[warmare]

[The look on her face when he calls her "the great Hayame"... He had claimed that there were times when he could be serious when she'd accused him of never being it before, but he tests her every time. (That... and it just seems like mockery, to do it when she lays before him so residually weak.)]

... Let it be so.

[A favor. An offer to aid him, in whatever he might need. She can agree to that.

And now that it is done and decided... she twists from the "waist" and begins to roll her heavy lower half over to the other side of the mattress, clearing space closer to him.]

[leicesters]

[He'd almost expected a refusal, so he's glad when she agrees. He doesn't have any ideas right away, but he's sure sooner or later he'll find a way to call the favour in. It's always good to have more cards in his deck to play when he can, if he needs them.

As for here and now, he watches as she rolls over without a word, and he assumes he's supposed to take a hint here, but he's not quite sure what that hint is.]

Are you making room for me or trying to get away from me? [It's a half-teasing, half-serious question.]

[warmare]

[Hayame hates very much when the hints she thinks ought to be very clear turn out to be not- the product of different cultures and her own difficult personality. There is a moment when she doesn’t respond and instead keeps resituating herself, waiting until she has managed to roll herself over and present her back(s) before muttering,]

You are tired.

[She’d felt it through his shard. When the contact was so direct as that, body to soul… there was no hiding very well the cost of absorbing her Blight.]

You should rest properly before attempting to begin your day.

[And it was his mattress. She didn’t think he had another one lying around.]

[leicesters]

Ahhh, gotcha. [She's not wrong, so he lugs himself onto the mattress and lays down with a relieved sigh. It's still warm from where she'd been laid moments before.

While he'd love to just doze off then and there for a nap, he instead regards her back.]

Hey... Thanks for letting me help. I'm really glad you're okay. [He touches her shoulder, intended as a gesture of comfort, but gentle enough that she could shrug him off if she wanted to. Yet she had touched his shard, the most intimate part of him, with such care. It felt strange not to return the gesture somehow.]

[warmare]

[There is a reason she had waited to invite him until after she rolled over to her other side. He does not need to see if she is blushing. But it also means that she doesn't expect the touch that is suddenly there, and-

Hayame flinches on instinct.

She is not accustomed to touch that isn't intended to hurt or to discipline. A moment after she recognizes the gesture for what it is, but... she still doesn't know what to do with it. She had reluctantly learned the shameful act of holding hands for purifying Discord, now the Blight, but...

Her tail swishes against his leg. She tries to relax her shoulders. She wishes that she was still holding his shard, so that she would know for sure if he was telling the truth.]

Do not thank me for that.

[It was pathetic. She'd hoped he would realize by now.]

[leicesters]

[Claude keeps his hand there even after she flinches, if only to show the gesture doesn't mean any harm, nor was it intended to startle her. Almost imperceptibly, though, her shoulders seem to relax, and he feels the swish of her silky tail against him. It's... something.]

Too late. [He lets out a quiet laugh, shifting on his side to rest his forehead between her shoulderblades.] No take-backsies.

[He closes his eyes, starting to give in to his exhaustion. There's something comforting about being in the presence of someone he now knows he can trust, without reservation. It's a feeling that ebbs out across their connection, like a warm, gentle breeze.]

[warmare]

[First his hand, now his- was that his forehead? It isn't the softest pillow, considering how muscular her arms and shoulders had become over the years of doing archery, but. Where he can't see, her cheeks do grow ruddy.]

No take-backsies... ? How old are you?

[... It feels good, though. That breeze.]

[leicesters]

[He doesn't mind that she's not exactly the softest pillow, instead finding reassurance in her solid presence.]

'M a very mature and distinguished adult.

[Says the very mature adult now mumbling into her back as he starts dozing off. It's entirely convincing (?).]

[warmare]

[It wasn't as if the actual number of Hayame's age was all that high, but as far as she was concerned she'd been an adult most of her life... and he certainly wasn't conducting himself like one, with all those jokes. Her tail swishes again, back and forth against his feet.]

Don't get carried away just because you have hair on your face now...

[But despite her muttering, she won't stop him from dozing off. After all... she won't be able to fall back asleep until he does.

Maybe this time the sleep will actually be restful.]

[leicesters]

Mm.

[It's a vague noise of... it's not clear if it's agreement or disagreement -- or either-- but soon his breathing evens out as he gives in to sleep.]