August Aftermath: Plants Solidify Sunshine

[lifeaftr_mods]

AUGUST AFTERMATH: OVERGROWTH

Who: Everyone
What: You're back, for better or worse
When: August 19th and onward
Where: The Storyteller's Temple on Ensō, and anywhere else
Warnings: Please mark as you go!

Optimism Doesn't Change the Facts

By the end of the 17th, the last of those suffering from the Overgrowth have either pulled through or succumbed entirely. For the next two days, their bodies will decompose and the flowers will feed on their remains, flourishing into bright patches of color.

If you perished and choked on your flowery words, never fear. Come the 19th, you will be stirring awake in the Storyteller's Temple. You will be experiencing a few...side effects, as it happens, while your body readjusts. It will take something like a week for those symptoms to disperse, though the Storyteller isn't around to inform you of this.

What is around? Aside from your own freshly revived selves, there are a great deal of flowers, and all of them are sickeningly familiar. Scarlet gladiolus. Blushing dog rose. Soft yellow buttercups. Garnet-colored geraniums. Dark nodules of fly orchids. Rich violets. Periwinkle hydrangeas. Peppered yellow speckles of goldenrod. Jade green zinnias. Red spears of snapdragons. Pale begonias. Pink spangles of mountain laurel. The very flowers that killed you are now growing all over the Temple, inside and out, in rich abundance, cloying the air with their perfumed fragrance.

Don't be concerned. These ones certainly aren't going to be spreading to your flesh anytime soon.

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If your character died during this event, please let us know if you have not already. Death penalties have been reduced for this event, but we still need to account for them!

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( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[hyperlit]

always sick

[Dismissive, nonplussed. One sickness stacked atop the other had made things, briefly, more difficult to bear. At least now they no longer stink of lavender, that cloying scent.]

floweres will not hurt you?

[vagabone]

[How are they writing without pushing any of those little buttons?? Because there aren't any at all.

He flexes his fingers, considering. There is a faint stinging sensation. That's no big deal, there's always pain somewhere.]

I guess not. So... you're not sick from the flower curse?

[hyperlit]

older sickness

[The phrase "neural jack" is probably a bit too complicated for someone like Héctor; unfortunately, the Drifter is not the sort of person to explain anything unless prompted, and even when they are, their explanations leave a little something to be desired.]

no cure

[vagabone]

[Probably. At least he doesn't mind not having electricity and any sort of modern appliance.

They have his sympathies for the 'no cure' thing. No one can help him either, not in the spirit world.]

Right, right... especially not here. No medicine.

[hyperlit]

[They require no further justification, as far as they're concerned. They don't need to define or pick over the specifics of their illness for him. It has never mattered before; why should it now?]

curse = sickness?

[vagabone]

Curse, sickness, whatever you want to call it. It got me, it got the robots and it's taken care of by telling the truth. Sounds like a curse to me.

[hyperlit]

same thing

[Accomplished the same purpose. The semantics do not concern them, and so they do not continue to entertain it. They move on.]

how many lost

[vagabone]

[He wilts a little, ribs clacking against each other.]

About a dozen people, I think. I only know two of them.

[hyperlit]

it will be a strain

[On the Storyteller, they mean, though they don't specify. The last time a great many people were lost, the island nearly flooded. Though that may have had more to do with the Storyteller's emotional state at the time, they did not ask.]

[vagabone]

[So many things he still doesn't know about. Pray he doesn't stumble upon the center of gravity.

They're getting an odd look from Héctor.]

Right... no one's having a good time right now.

[hyperlit]

[They suppose they ought to elaborate, though they are not terribly good at doing so:]

the storyteller will have difficulty

[vagabone]

[Oh. Well. He glances around... that's right, they don't seem to be in the temple.]

...Is there anything we can do about it?

[hyperlit]

[A lift of their shoulders in a very slight shrug.]

unknown
give stories maybe

[vagabone]

...Right. Sure, I can do that.

[If not directly to them, at least inside the temple. Talk to the wall, to the altar, or just to his own detached hand, whatever.]

[hyperlit]

done it before?

[They...would have to assume he has, seeing as he sounds quite confident about it.]

[vagabone]

[What was that? You wanted more confidence? He thumbs his suspender strap, look how cool he is.]

I was here for the last one. Came in on the day the elevator was swallowing people up.

[hyperlit]

ok

[Don't be unnerved by their bluntness. That's just...how they are.]

stories give them power
might help

[vagabone]

[He's reading text off the screen of some futuristic gadget. It was always going to be an odd conversation.]

Stories are powerful for everyone. Don't worry, I can always find something to talk about.

[hyperlit]

good

[Another muffled cough. At least they are no longer leaking blood and flowers at such concentrated rates. Now, they merely leak blood, at more typical rates for one such as them.]

[There is a good reason their clothing is red. The pink blends in very well.]

[vagabone]

[That sounds painful. Maybe they need some honey and tea... neither of which he actually has.]

You want to sit down and tell some stories of your own?

[hyperlit]

[Their only immediate response to that is a small, slow blink of their eyes.]

don't have stories

[That is a lie. But they are no longer being physiologically penalized for it, so you can't stop them.]

[vagabone]

Oh, not to me. To them.

[He jerks a thumb at the Storyteller's altar. Yeah, not buying the lie one bit. Just take it easy, whoever you are.]

[hyperlit]

soon

[There are nights for this sort of thing, after all. And the Drifter...has people they need to ensure haven't perished. Or have since been revived.]

flowers
picking them?

[vagabone]

[Stupid idea, isn't it? He eyes all the flowers that outnumber him hundreds to one. And shrugs.]

Just to be rid of them. Especially if they're poison.

[hyperlit]

[The Drifter cocks their head to one side. There is no other visual cue as to their puzzlement, but puzzle them the instinct does.]

growing back?