beleos: (Default)
beleos ([personal profile] beleos) wrote in [community profile] kenoslogs2023-04-21 04:58 pm

The Seeds of Unrest, Phase Two 🌱


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
redsoil: (pic#16220706)

[personal profile] redsoil 2023-05-08 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He laughs, bright and sharp. What is Zhongli talking about?

The Tribune? A promise? ]
Did someone addle your brains, make you stupid? You did not pledge anything to the Tribune. You chose to turn your back on the people of your world, and seek something new with the Matron.

[ Zhongli remains rooted in place, and Set ceases to lead him. Instead, he lifts his head a little, to peer out from below the edge of his mask thoughtfully, gazing at the perpetual calm upon the other man's face. He has always been an intriguing thing, as even-tempered and thoughtful as the earth itself ( as, perhaps, Set's own father — ). To try and move him in this moment, he feels, might be a battle that he does not feel like starting between himself and his Zenith kin. Maybe another time, though. For fun, to test himself and Zhongli both.

Instead, he flicks his fingers up through the dark, coppery bangs near to the man's temple. Pushing them to one side, then to another, as if seeking an injury that could explain his obvious confusion. ]


You did not choose hope, Zhongli. Come now, abandon Springstar to their silly flights of fancy and return to where you belong, with me. The only distraction here is either your own addled mind, or the effects of the Blight. Are you feeling ill, hm? I feel perfectly well, [ cold, he feels cold, his Shard is cold even despite the Discord that burns throughout him, wrathful and full of light. ] But, you are acting strange.
sharethememory: ([screenshot] 035)

1/2

[personal profile] sharethememory 2023-05-11 07:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ Zhongli presses two fingers against the palm of Set's hand, applying just enough pressure so the locks of hair are pushed to the side so he can see eye to mask with the other deity. ]

Lord Set, god of war---

[ While it is said with Zhongli's usual veneer of politeness, it might also come across like one's parent addressing their child by their full legal name. ]

I will not tolerate the accusation of turning my back on my people. Speak as such again, and I shall be very cross with you.
sharethememory: ([screenshot] 094)

[personal profile] sharethememory 2023-05-11 07:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ The stern look quickly melts into an exasperated one as Zhongli reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. It seems that fate had decreed that he would not have the luxury of dealing with one crisis at a time - fickle and cruel fate.

But what an odd time for a change of heart, even if Zhongli had never bothered to ask Set why he joined Meridian in the first place.
]

Bold of you to choose now of all times to switch sides. Inconvenient as well.

[ Zhongli really finds the thought distasteful, but such an agreement was a personal one between the Shard Bearers and the faction leaders. It was not his place to intervene or judge -- even though he was absolutely not so silently judging Set right about now. ]

While I might be under some effects of the Blight, I would be truly far gone to not remember my contracts.

[ The fingers still pressed to Set's palm skid downward to find the strong beat of his pulse, right at curve of the wrist. ]

If you truly do believe this is not your city, then why are you here, my friend?