October Event: Crystal Clear

[lifeaftr_mods]

OCTOBER EVENT: CRYSTAL CLEAR

Who: Everyone!
What: Your exploration takes a turn.
When: October 20th - 26th
Where: The caverns situated underneath Ensō
Warnings: Character death, body horror, descriptions of illness. Please mark any additional warnings as needed!

Part I: Attack, Attack!
Congratulations! You've successfully gone where no Storyteller has gone or can go, and woken up in the network of subterranean caves buried beneath the island's mass, along with your designated supplies: a miner's cap, a week's worth of food, and both your knapsacks and their collective contents. And the further along you go, the vaster and more sprawling these almost labyrinthian tunnels seem to get. There’s certainly evidence that civilization once thrived here - old buildings hewed from the rock of the cave walls may very well contain old tools, or even salvageable supplies. Careful examination of structures and cavern walls alike will reveal sigils resembling those carved on the doors, each of which will need to be destroyed entirely at the Storyteller's behest. Whatever was down here was advanced enough to dwell without sunlight. But that raises a rather pertinent question...

If there were once people here, where did they all go?

Fortunately, one will soon discover that there's plenty of natural light underground, exhibited by the crystalline growths on the walls. None of them appear to be dangerous, and those attracted to shiny things might even find them useful for picking up or chipping away in order to better light their way. The crystal has about the thickness and hardness of quartz, and bathes its surroundings in a luminous green glow.

The closer you come to the center of the mass, however, the denser the crystalline growths seem to become, until one has to be quite ingenious in navigating them. Eventually, they'll simply be too dense to be squeezed through, even by the smallest and most agile of your number.

That’s when they it will start to become apparent.
Something in the crystal is moving.

Huge chunks of crystal are starting to detach from the center and move slowly, inexorably, toward those unfortunate enough to have explored the caverns. Unmistakably humanoid silhouettes, distorted by awful crystalline growths, most of which have completely swallowed any recognizable features.

...most.

The good news is that the creatures can be shattered, and beaten back. The bad news? Well...

Part II: Retreat, Retreat!
Those who get close enough to the crystalized beasts to get a good look at them will soon make a horrifying discovery - the fact that, underneath those thick layers of luminescent quartz, there was once something that might have been recognizable as human. These quartz monsters aren't native to this region, or indeed, to any region of the island at all. They were formed.

Formed out of the very crystal that you explorers have been touching, picking up, sleeping on, and just generally remaining in prolonged contact with ever since you set foot down here.

Indeed, anyone who has been in contact with the crystal for extended periods of time - sleeping on it or getting dealt a swipe from one of the crystalized monsters, for example - will find that tiny, quartz-like growths have started to sprout on their skin as well. Once the virus has taken root, it will spread rapidly until it has swallowed you whole. Indeed, the unpleasant symptoms will reveal themselves within twenty-four hours of the initial exposure: in addition to clusters of crystalline growths pocking the affected areas, the inflicted will begin to experience intense stabbing pains all over as the crystal begins to grow - both inside and out. The transformation is slow and arduous and painful, and vocalization tends to be one of the first things to go once the crystals sprout in the mouth and throat. Within the span of about three days since the initial exposure, the transformation will have sheathed most of the physical body in crystal entirely, sealing the victim in a humanoid cast of glasslike green.

It has not been confirmed if the inflicted are sentient and aware of their state of being once they are completely consumed. Whatever their intentions, those are easily overridden by the virus's innate desire to spread to as many organisms as possible.

As this is an event with a high risk of death, the Storyteller will impose death penalties for one week only. Additionally, deaths succumbed during the event count towards the character's total. There is no known cure to the virus, but that doesn't mean characters can't or shouldn't try!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] October 20th: Spelunking begins. Points of interest will be provided.
[ ♆ ] October 22nd: The Quartzalcoatl make their presence known.
[ ♆ ] October 24th: The final sigils are broken, and the Storyteller will return all uninfected to the Islets.
[ ♆ ] October 26th: All deceased will be returned at midday, suffering from a reduced death penalty.

Event Specifics

[ ♆ ] If your character perishes in this event, please let us know!
[ ♆ ] For those who opted out, please see the top-level below!
[ ♆ ] Item claims can be found on the OOC plotting post here!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

:: implied suicidal ideation

[ichininyaanshi]

[They're still struggling, but not in the same way. Their fight is to breathe, to exist in this space with him, and a part of Ichimatsu suddenly goes out to them; the very illness of existing can feel like the worst one to combat. At the very thought, he digs his molars so hard into his tongue that he tastes salt. No. He doesn't have a right to think that shit right now.]

[They're still fighting. It turns that oily curtain of heat inside him, the one he can't identify. Pity, maybe. Envy? Hell if he knows.]

[But Ichimatsu doesn't rebuke them again. He's pretty sure he got his message across. He watches that wave of pale ichor slide from their mouth, wonders just how much distance his mask ever really gave them - it doesn't disturb him as much as it should. He's seen things die before; strays, mostly. Ill cats he did his best for without any real level of skill. There's a difference between seeing a cat die and person die, he supposes, but any experience at all can blunt a few of the edges.]

[The message, when it forms, meets with his mirthless exhale of a chuckle.]

[Don't let it take him, huh? Why's that? This grotesque, disfiguring death is worse than he deserves, maybe? Don't die alone way down here, away from all the vigilant and prying eyes of his brothers. The request would be hilarious if this guy really knew him.]

[They don't. So he lets them off the hook.]

[Shit, it's not like anything else in the universe is giving them a break.]

You've got some nerve, making demands in your position. [There's no heat. None at all.]

[Ichimatsu leans forward intently.]

... tell me whose instructions I'm following, then.

[hyperlit]

[They've got some nerve? Truthfully, they're not entirely certain what they mean by that. At the moment, much of them feels nerveless - the extremities, mostly numb and aching in the flayed roadmap of what remains of their nerves, screwed up tight in pitted little nodes that make it difficult to move in any particular way. Nerveless save for the pulsing agony grinding up against their bones, the slow encroaching of a virus they've no power to stop.]

[No time now to search for a cure. All they can do is press back against it until they can press back no more.]

[They blink slowly, painfully, trying to peer at him to get a clearer picture of his expression and therefore his intent. Nothing reveals itself to them. Nothing becomes easier to understand, easier to bear. Again, the meaning of what he's asking escapes them. Unless he's asking for a title somehow more specific?]

[Not possible. Particularly now.]

[It's growing harder to wipe away the marks in the dirt. Slower to scrawl the fresh, wobbling line of them after.]

DRIFTER

[ichininyaanshi]

[Hah. All this time he's been avoiding learning their name out of some little effort not to get attached, and it turns out they won't even give him one. Or don't have one, maybe. Ichimatsu stares at the pathetic scrawl. DRIFTER. A title of some sort?]

[Well, that's fine. If that's what they want - or are used to - then that's what he'll call them.]

[He nods, expressionless.]

Fine. Even though I'm trash, I won't die in a shithole like this. Drifter didn't want me to.

[He hadn't been planning to die, as big a game he talks. But he's not a fighter like them. He guesses he owes it to them, to start - because no matter how much he complains, there's the fact that they aren't the one who went around making demands first.]

[Try not to die, he'd told them. Ha, it's obvious now that he was just preaching to the choir. They're trying so hard not to. It's pitiable... and admirable. They deserve someone who can send them off gently. If only he were any of his brothers -- kind Jyushimatsu, patient Karamatsu, reassuring Osomatsu.]

[... but it's probably better that it's him.]

Hey. Thanks.

Relax now.

[hyperlit]

[Did he forget? It seems unlikely. There are none other like them on this island, in this foreign world. The purposes of asking their name escapes them. They only have the same title that has satisfied everyone else who has asked. They have no other.]

[He will get out. He says that he will and regardless of what he says after, that is what matters. They must trust it. They must trust his word.]

[Their eyes have lost their beetle-dark shine, partially glazed. It takes several minutes more than it should to focus on the silhouette telling them to rest.]

WILL SOON

[One trembling hand half lifted, with a tremendous effort, until they can approximate that u-shape over their slowly crystallizing features.]

[They’re smiling, see? A joke.]

[They’ll rest for a long time after.]

[ichininyaanshi]

[It's a joke, but Ichimatsu doesn't laugh. There's nothing funny about watching those feeble letters take shape in the dirt, drawn by a trembling finger. The urge to snap at them to stop wasting their energy on this shit is powerful; his molars press fiercely down on his tongue to head it off. If they've finally accepted their death, it might as well be on their terms. He can't tell them what to do.]

[The joke isn't funny, but then Ichimatsu sees that little curved-u shape formed by the Drifter's hand over their mouth. And -- that's funny, a gesture so fucking kind and pleasant with the backdrop of their mutating face, Ichimatsu does laugh. A bark that leaps from him sharply, echoing in the cave, and he runs his hand up through his bangs in disbelief.]

[He doesn't get them. He doesn't get it.]


[Whatever.]

[It's only a few seconds. His hand drops to his face, and he mirrors the hooked curve of his thumb and index over his own mouth, staring back out at Drifter with his dull, heavy-lidded eyes and a limp approximation of their favorite gesture.]

[c:]

[hyperlit]

[There, you see? It is a little bit funny. The sound rasping out from Ichimatsu's gritted teeth is lower and sharper than any true mirth out to be, but whether it is his means of coping or genuine amusement, they've not the mental fortitude to parse it. And so they do not. It matters very little. What matters is that he did laugh, in the end.]

[They'll continue to fight it. For as long as they may, for as long as is possible for them, they will continue to fight it.]

THN

[That's as far as they get. A sharp jab of something many-edged, approximating a crystalline leucotome, slams into the center of their chest and their free hand comes up sharply to press against the phantom injury, knowing that it is of little use. It comes from within, and it will blaze within, burning that trail through and through until nothing is left.]

[A thick slurry of pink froths out from behind their mantle.]

[A shake of their head to clear it, and they lift their chin, jerking it to meet Ichimatsu's eyes.]

[Please go.]

[ichininyaanshi]

[Ichimatsu don't react. Not immediately. His eyes stay trained on their hand, stitched into their chest, trying to hold back whatever is finally getting around to killing them. Something in him gives an angry twist. This is -- it's sick. Why won't it just let them die, already?]

[Someone better than him would have insisted on staying with Drifter until the end. Ichimatsu isn't that soft or gentle; dying is dying, and he doesn't know how to treat it like a delicate thing for someone so utterly opposed to it. Leaving them like this... it's cruel, it's fucking deplorable, but what good is he going to do here?]

[None. In fact, he watches the drip of sickly pink from their sopping mask, and he knows exactly what they mean to say, garbled dirt-scrawl aside. Yeah, he gets it.]

[Most cats prefer being alone when they die, too.]

[That settles it, then. Ichimatsu scoots back, slowly drags himself to his feet. He doesn't realize how hard he's clutching the strap of his knapsack until the bones in his wrist crackle with pain.]

.....

[Sorry, Osomatsu-niisan.]

... sleep well.

[hyperlit]

[The faded violet blur retreats and recedes. A parting word or two, soft and easy, and he'll be gone.]

[Sleep well.]

[They can hardly work the muscles of their neck, stiff with soreness and with the things growing upward there, sheathing them in green and dappled rock, properly to lower their head in a nod. But they manage it, at long last.]

[They will.]

[Thank you. They will.]