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

[intervener]

[ Vash takes the offered blade, giving a tip of his head in gratitude as he turns it over in his hand. ]

Gotta say, that's a pretty neat party trick.

[ ahem; he realizes this is most likely much more than a skill used to wow the masses as lighthearted gatherings, but you know. sometimes one can't help but inject a little levity into a situation now and then, right? but Vash puts the jesting aside for a moment to make an incision across his finger, letting the blood drip down onto Zhongli's chesspiece-like Shard. near immediately, the Zenite should feel two things: firstly, the spread of warmth beginning to permeate the unnatural chill that's crept into his body, and secondly, the quiet but undeniable feeling of energy - not the kind one finds in natural life, necessarily, but one that is invigorating none-the-less. ]

So it's been bugging you too. [ offered more as a statement than a question; though they don't know each other more than in bare passing, Vash feels he is a pretty good judge of character; the other man reads as the sort who garners no pleasure from the dire straits in either city. ]

You ever come across anything like this 'blight' before?

[sharethememory]

[ Zhongli unconsciously rumbles a pleased sound as the effects of the purification course through him. Later, he might nurse a cup of tea and think about the nature of that energy - something he could not quite label as mortal or divine, but also nothing that he had a word for in his vocabulary. Curious. Curious indeed. But for now, addled and exhausted that Zhongli is, all thoughts reduce to one simple thought:

It's warm.

And as a creature who lived the majority of life in a harbor city, weather tempered by oceans and mountains, there were few things better than the simplicity of warmth. Really, Kenos had been a bit chilly for him this entire time. ]

The Blight seems to be an -- infection is perhaps the best I can describe it -- from the Scorching Isles, another island in Kenos that was opened briefly to the Shard Bearers. It seems to be the result of some time magic gone awry though I'm afraid I know little more than that.

I fear it may have be us that brought the Blight back to Highstorm and Springstar upon on return from the search for the first Oracle.

[ And as such, Zhongli felt more responsibility in trying to stop its efforts and prevent further suffering of the people. ]

[intervener]

[ Vash's concentration on the 'purification' spell is minimal; it comes naturally, feels natural in a way he doesn't quite understand but doesn't feel a need to question regardless. it means he has no problem keeping up the conversation as Zhongli is given a small respite from what ails him.

and truthfully, the newfound light of a quiet two-way connection will betray that Vash - despite not being the recipient of this purification - has found some manner of 'healing' in it, too. there is something comforting about Zhongli's presence, something inherent to his demeanor that lends to the hard edges of tension beginning to ease. ]

I heard about that before... not much, but someone else mentioned something about people being frozen?

[ hm... ]

You were there with them?

[sharethememory]

[ Purification is not an unknown process to Zhongli, though when dealing with karma from his home world, the burden could never be shared between individuals. It's comforting in a way to know that it is here even if that could potential come with another host of problems. But that all seems secondary as the cold grasp of the Blight loosens its talons in him.

In return across the bond comes gratitude and appreciation, for though Zhongli is confident that he could have managed somehow to return home to rest, this made things so much simpler. There's also an optimism from Vash that flows through Zhongli, gaining strength before it is ultimately returned.

The future always did belong to those who were willing to fight for it.

And now revitalized, Zhongli easily slips into storyteller mode, happy to help fill the gaps of the times before Vash arrived in Kenos: ]

Ah yes, the information was disjointed so I'm not certain that I am painting an accurate portrayal, but it is where we were sent to uncover the first Oracle. The whole island, castle, and it inhabitants were frozen but not in ice, but rather in time. I am not completely certain if it was the direct result of a time mage who had recently arrived there, but surely that was a compounding factor. The only creatures unaffected were an otter named Mr. Tibbs and a talented performer who managed to sequester herself away deep in the castle.

[intervener]

[ why is talking with Grandpa Zhongli like having a chat with an old friend you're catching up with after a long time away?? that's what it feels like, Vash realizes. it has that same nostalgic twang. it really does!! he's charmed......

--but he is doing his best to focus despite the light of this new tendril of Bond that's formulated between them (he is new to this sort of thing, don't mind his clumsy handling of it he's trying his best). is it working? kinda.

sorta.

.......no, ]

Not to... cut you off or anything, 'cause I promise I'm listening, but do you...

[ ................ ]

Feel-- weird? Weird... er?