lifeaftr | January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

JANUARY UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: Hey bud, how's it growing?
When: January 3rd to January 20th
Where: Everywhere!
Warnings: This event has a potential for body horror and character death; please mark anything as it comes up!

A Notion Growing Inside Me

Those of you who weren't with us the last time Umui entered the archipelago didn't have to contend with the lethal illness known as the Overgrowth personally, but anyone who remembers it probably doesn't remember it fondly. Fortunately, this isn't quite the same strain of the illness that you had to contend with the last time. It's not unrelentingly and uncompromisingly fatal, for one! That's always nice.

For those that need a primer on the Overgrowth, it is best described as a sickness that overcomes you with floral growth both inside and outside your body that can only be cured by expressions of emotional honesty. Expressions of truths, affections, and admissions of things that you have hidden from yourselves or from others were critical in dispensing of the illness. These could be as simple as admissions of past sins or the revealing of secrets, or as grandiose and overt as confessions of guilt or love. That general idea will remain more or less the key means of curing this strain as well, though the stakes fortunately aren't as high this go around! Which is to say, if you fail to have any grand emotional epiphanies by the time this event ends, you aren't doomed to suffer a character death; symptoms will simply dissipate come January 20th.

So what's this sickness going to be like in this particular instance, then? We're so glad you asked!

You can go the standard route, of course. Adventurers' first brush with the illness saw the following afflicted upon them:

[ ♆ ] Stage One: Germination. Initial symptoms involve fever, coughing fits, numbness to nerves and extremities, and general joint stiffness. Difficulty breathing or performing other basic functions will often occur. Fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and intense weakness or dizzy spells are also liable to occur as the flowers begin to harvest nutrients from the body. This will also generate extreme thirst and periods of intense nausea. Tremors and the sensation of something "itching" from inside are also common. The end of Stage One is usually marked by the act of vomiting or coughing up flower petals or spores, along with a not-insignificant amount of blood.

[ ♆ ] Stage Two: Budding. The floral growths spread more completely inside the body, and begin to grow on the skin or exterior. Difficulty performing basic functions will increase as, for example, airways become obstructed and flowers grow around joints and pinch them still. The site of affliction also yields rashes, blisters, and blood sores as the flowers sprout from the skin. The rate of vomiting or coughing up floral growths will increase dramatically. Flowers often bloom quickly, and very painfully. Numbness in affected areas will increase, oftentimes rendering parts of the body completely inert - a pair of legs claimed completely by blooms, for example, will no longer work.

This was followed by Stage Three: Bloom, which resulted in character death. However, this strain will not advance to this style of Stage Three. All symptoms will disperse by the time Umui resurfaces.

This strain is also rather more erratic, which can make emotional repression more of an inconvenience than a horrifying circumstance. For those who would rather not play around with intense sickness (or who have already endured this once before), you have the option to go that route if you like! With this variant of the Overgrowth, one can become, for example, so embarrassed that they hiccup up a flower. A vicious denial of their feelings may cause them to spontaneously erupt into a rash of dandelion puffballs, seemingly immediately. You might end up walking around with a bouquet for an arm for a few hours. Perhaps mortifying, but certainly not fatal! Isn't that nice?

Unless, of course, you want it to be...

I Can't Fight It Much Longer

Now, while the Bloom Stage isn't present in this strain, it has mutated its progression into a rather nasty end stage. Those of you who succumb a little too readily to this illness, who don't fight off the emotional repression quickly, who don't admit those difficult truths to yourself or confess to whatever you're bottling up, you'll be faced with a potentially horrifying transformation. Potentially, because it is your choice whether or not you see fit to commit your character to that fate - as stated above, this option might simply skip over your character entirely, and the worst they'll have to deal with are cartoonishly over-the-top effects that disperse in due time.

But maybe not all of you will be so lucky. Some of you might discover for yourselves how this particular variant of the Overgrowth has mutated.

We call this mutation Stage Three: Outbreak.

In this final Stage, those beautiful blooms wither and harden into a fungus-like carapace as the illness grows into the victim's brain and shuts down virtually all higher functions. This can sometimes render them almost wholly recognizable, but not always - oftentimes, it's very obvious who this person once was. The victim is reduced to a carrier of the virus, which causes them to act the way you'd expect most viruses to act: becoming intent on spreading. Advanced brain functions such as speech, rational thought, and so on tend to shut off and become wholly inaccessible.

Now that the victim's body is no longer fighting the Overgrowth, the illness lends them increased speed, strength, and durability, making them dangerous foes indeed. They will usually seek to infect others by whatever means necessary - usually via biting or exuding breathable spores - but in some cases, they will simply reduce to base instincts, and just outright attempt to attack and kill whoever is closest.

Unfortunately, at this point, there is no hope of a cure; it's hard to make someone be emotionally honest when they're capable of little more than blunt, animal instinct. At this point, you can either wait for the Stage Three symptoms to disperse come Umui's return, or take manners into your own hands. You can probably guess what that might entail.

If you decide to put your Overgrown friends out of their misery, this will count as a character death. If it comes to that, be sure to let us know on the Deaths page! Death penalties, however, will not be reduced for this event.

Try to Get Through It

Of course, there's a lot going on in the background as well. You're free to use this log as a catch-all for the duration of January's Undercurrent Event, as well as any of the other minor events listed on our Monthly Rundown post. And, of course, you are always free to create your own individual logs and posts as needed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them over on the Questions header on our Rundown post!

January Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 1st: "This Sucks" begins and lasts until January 10th
[ ♆ ] January 3rd: "Growing Pains" begins and lasts until January 20th
[ ♆ ] January 11th: "No Water is Safe" begins and lasts until January 19th
[ ♆ ] January 20th: Umui returns to the archipelago
[ ♆ ] January 21st: "Impawsible Geometries" begins and lasts until January 31st

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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It makes them feel better. Because that's what Heroes do.

[They give their lives, they save other people no matter what the cost to themselves is. Over and over and over again.]

It isn't fair. But... Faerie isn't fair. Life isn't fair.

[And then quieter.] I don't want to be a hero.

[Ah but there's something unsaid there, and he chokes on it and several flower petals all at once.]

[Keith focuses on him. He swallows and the words he doesn't want to say are an itch in the back of his throat. He takes a breath and then he says it.] ...no one wants to be a hero. The people who do?

They don't understand. People who walk that path? They just want to protect people. Their loved ones. People in pain. It doesn't matter.

[The words sting but flowers drop off his hip as wilted, dead husks. He keeps going.] They do it because something has to be fair. Life won't be. But people can be.

Sometimes. [He looks away, looking across the grass as he says in a quiet tone,]

Be as kind as they wished life had been to them.

[Quentin nods.] I do want that. I want the people I care about to be safe. I want things to be just a little kinder.

You're that kind of person too, I think.

[He watches Keith now. Is this helping? The flutter of petals in his lungs surges again and he coughs. Still there, but faintly wilted as well. Maybe they're making a difference. He sighs, dropping his forehead to his knees. His next words are muffled]

Toby taught me that too. She's the best knight I could've asked for. Being her squire... it's made me a better person.

[Another pause because some secrets he's supposed to be bound to kept, but in favor of not dying, he supposes those oaths can be overlooked.] It'll make me a better king... even if I...

[The words freeze on his lips. This is the real secret, the one he hasn't ever spoken out loud, the one he's barely acknowledged to himself]

[Keith closes his eyes. A king. Then Quentin is a prince being honed into a leader of his people. He keeps running into rulers and gods. And Death. His lips twitch at the corners,

I don't want to be a hero.] He leans forward, breathing in as deep as his lungs will allow. He needs it.]

Even if you?

[He coaxes, urging Quentin to save his own life.] I hate this sickness. It's like we can't have any damn peace.

[Quentin lifts his head with a sigh. This shouldn't be hard, especially with the knowledge that this is the way to save his life, but the words still catch in his throat.

Another coughing fit, and once he's managed to quiet it, once he finds his breath, he spits out the words, and once he starts they all pour from his lips like a torrent.]

Even if I'm terrified. When I come of age, I'll have to reclaim my name and leave San Francisco, leave everyone I've met and love. I'll be expected to have an heir, which means saying goodbye to my boyfriend. My best friend will be a King of Cats and separate and outside the Divided Courts. I love him, and that'll be a liability for both of us when I take the throne. That's so screwed up. How can friendship be a liability? And how am I supposed to be High King? How can I be in charge of every other kingdom in North America? Do you know how screwed up Faerie kingdoms are? They're a mess. What if I make things worse? And Toby's a king breaker, so does that mean I don't get to see her anymore either?

[Sorry, Keith. It's all coming out now though.] But it's my duty and my responsibility, burden and blessing, and I won't turn away from it. I couldn't do that to my parents. Or to my sister. It'd all land on her, and that would be even worse. Penny doesn't deserve that at all.

[He listens to the words. Shiro or Allura would be leagues better at this. But maybe because he’s so damn bad at this he can help. They’re supposed to confess to things, admit how they really feel. It’s so easy to just say it. The words have been brimming since this began.]

I never wanted to lead. I just wanted a place to belong. I asked the Black Lion to let me help Shiro. Not...make him think about me leading after him. He was on a time limit for a while. He chose me the damn loner. I suck at social skills. I would rather hack away at a training dummy than talk to people. It’s just easier.

And I couldn’t accept it because if I was leading it meant he was gone. [He swallows and buries his hand in his hair and forces himself to keep going. The shadow of old grief compounded several times makes it difficult to talk. But he has to.] I was afraid too. How could place their lives in my hands. What if they wouldn’t follow my orders? What if I just made things worse? What if we couldn’t go the distance? What if because of me we lost the war?

What if someone died?

[He waits until the remembered panic clears and drops his hand to rest against his leg.] It took me until I saw a glimpse of the future to figure out something important.

[Keith glances down at his Bayard and touches it. The purple light engulfs the weapon as it reverts into a harmless shape.] It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to feel like it’s too much. Nothing worth doing is easy. Leaders get the shit job so no one else has to. We lead the way and if we mess up it can get messy.

[His hand tightens on the Bayard and his eyes look into the distance. The words keep coming.] If you look far ahead you’re going to choke. All we can do is what we have the training for and keep walking forward. The future is shaped from so many decisions that trying to guess it never works out.

Maybe seers go crazy because there’s just too much there. ...but you don’t have to think as far as claiming your throne right now. You have time to figure out how you feel and if it’s fear that’s okay. So as long as you don’t let it rule your decisions, you’ll be okay.

[Quentin looks almost startled as Keith goes on, if only because everything he's saying makes so much sense. The misgivings the other is echoing about leading, they're ones Quentin has heard rattling around in his own head. It eases something in him. Or maybe that's the flowers that have taken such deep root finally starting to wither.

Ducking his head with a laugh, Quentin nods.] I guess I should've remember that, that it's all right to be afraid. I mean, honestly, I'm afraid a lot... mostly for Toby, since she spends most of her time trying really hard to bleed to death.

[And thus far at least failing. He frowns at the mention of seers.] Maybe. Or maybe because no one ever seems to want to know the future for a good reason. [The Roan had paid the price for their sight with their lives, after all. But the future doesn't change just because no one sees it coming.]

Actually it feels kind of good to say all that. It probably doesn't matter here, but no one is supposed to know I'm the crown prince. I'm in blind fosterage. ...a bunch of people already know, but it's still mostly secret back home.

[He hesitates before adding, curiously.] Did it get easier for you? The leader thing?

[Keith jerks his head up and blinks, eyes going a little wide. He stares down at the bayard. In his mind’s eye there is the Black Lion and the flow of combat spread out before him. The orders drift up like leaves caught in the wind. He knows the capabilities of the team. They know what they can do and know he will do his best to lead them.

His hand tightens on the Bayard that has become second nature. Running ahead of the pack feels like second nature. At least if he’s bleeding no one else is. But they’ll be at his back, ready to lend their support. His answers stare him in the face. He looks up and meets Quentin’s eyes.]

Yeah. Sometimes I don’t even question it. Being at the front of the line is just what I do. They need someone to take all their ideas and build a plan.

I’m good at that. But leading isn’t solitary. [He taps the Bayard without looking away.] We all want a better world. Our visions of it might not be the same but we all are heading that way.

Up to people like you and I to sort through the visions and build the compromise. All we can do is our best.

[That answer earns a little smile from Quentin. Well, maybe there's some hope for his situation too. At least the fear of being up to the task.

The irony that he's well aware of in his own mind is that when he was younger, he was certain he'd make a great king. How hard could it be? But the more he sees, the more he's been through as Toby's squire, in seeing Arden coming into her own as Queen in the Mists and seeing the corruption that had worked its way through Silences and the Mists with the False Queen, with knowing what happened to the Roan because of struggles for power and jealousy. Well. He's grown up, is what's happened.]

I guess that's gotta be true, right? Our best... and hope it can be enough.

[Faerie is always a quagmire of trouble, but it's still home, still what he was born into.]

...hey. I think it's working. I don't feel like I need to cough both my lungs out. Maybe just half of the left one now.

[Keith pulls his shirt up, the cotton peeling up and exposing his flat stomach. Small holes and blood indicate where flowers had once grown out of the skin.]

Looks like it. I get the feeling only Shiro can banish some of this. I have some things I’ve been needing to tell him.

[He pulls his shirt up higher until a thin V on his chest smeared with blood is completely visible and the smooth lines of his collar bones.]

But breathing a bit better I’ll take. [He drops his shirt and sighs.] Hit me with another question.

Seems like a good time for a heart to heart then.

[Quentin watches the shirt go up and does a fairly decent job of keeping his attention to looking at the remnants of the flowers, and not the fact that Keith is pretty. The latter is just bisexual details, really.]

Right yeah. Questions. [Quentin considers, brow furrowing as he focuses again.]

This place... do you think it's trying to teach us something? [He shakes his head.] If it isn't, this place is just... sadistic. I mean, even if it is, I think that still applies.

[Keith grimaces. It's all too easy to remember the trials weighing on them and the final room that seemed to say 'remember, impulsive rage solves nothing'. He can almost feel the sticky slime and glitter on his skin.]

I think, [He says slowly as he sits a little straighter and smooths his shirt with his good hand. He's not quite as oblivious to Quentin's staring as he is pretending to be. He just doesn't quite process why. Is it the scars? He does have way more than most people do.]

That this is an old punishment for something. Umui was a quarantine and Tempide where they came from...something happened there. I need to go back over my notes of what we found. Have you met Kravitz yet?

Edited 2020-01-27 00:32 (UTC)

[Nope, Keith. It is not the scars at all. It is the basically everything else.]

An old punishment sounds ominous. And we're just... caught in it somehow?

[Luck? Something more sinister and deliberate than that?]

I don't think I recognize the name.

[Quentin is quiet for a long moment, considering.] ...oh, and in case it decides to become a petunia in my spleen or something, I think you're really pretty. Like just objectively. [A shrug because, facts are facts, and Quentin doesn't see anything weird about acknowledging this.]

[He blinks and his cheeks turn pink. Keith swallows, then ducks his head as the color spreads up to the tips of his ears.] Uh. Thanks.

...and to make sure I don’t cough up flowers over this I’m not used to being told that. I’m still getting used to it from Shiro.

[It takes a moment to compose himself. He really isn’t used to being seen in that light. Except by Shiro and in those cases he is busy seeing how much he can get his fiancé to relax.]

And yeah, we caught it originally from the mass grave we found on Umui. The flowers the dead leave behind are contagious if enough of their remains are airborne. We dig too deep and we’re likely to wake this again.

[Sorry Keith. Quentin smiles almost apologetically, letting the thanks pass without comment. By now he's figured out that Keith may look part fae, but he's not the sort of fae that Quentin is used to in his own world. The rules don't apply.

Besides, Keith blushing is oddly endearing.]

Your... [Keith had referred to him as his fiance, he thinks. He goes with it.] ...fiance is here you said, right? I'd like to meet him sometime. Maybe when I'm not hacking up floral arrangements.

[He frowns at 'mass grave' because that's awful.] So that makes investigating difficult.

Yeah. We're going to need to play it really smart when the island is in range. It all depends on how it has changed since we saw it.

[Keith experimentally rolls his left shoulder. His body responds almost as quickly as it should. So his response time will be up by 4-6 seconds. Good. He nods to himself, then grins.]

Yeah. When we're not all hacking up floral arrangements you should meet Shiro. He's a great guy to know. And watch. He's the pretty one.

[Quentin nods. Got it. Play it smart. Try not to die from horrible terrifying magical diseases. Good times all around.

He spares a grin at that.]

Well he's your fiance, you're supposed to say that.

[But yeah figures, power couple.

He takes a breath now definitely feeling better.] This really helped, Keith. I wasn't doing well at all.

Good. ...and it helped me too. I wasn't doing so great either. [He rests his head against his closed fist.] Guess I've still got a lot of walls up.

I didn't realize how much I was just stuffing down in there. Guess you didn't realize it either, yeah?

[Quentin has the decency to look sheepish at that.]

Guess I didn't. I'm pretty sure I've yelled at Tybalt about doing something similar.

[A shrug and he grins.] Good thing he isn't here to notice.

[It's easier to joke about it now, but wow does he miss his home and his mishmash little foundling family.]

[Keith cracks a smile and lets his hand fall back down to his side. His right arm is semi responsive now but he has to talk to Shiro. He stretches his left arm over his head and winces. The holes.

Damn. He drops his arm and turns to open his pack.] Let’s tend the holes left by those plants or we’ll get some nasty infection.

This place really is the gift that keeps on giving.

[Quentin mutters a curse under his breath that is half fairly traditional fae oak and thorn mixed with a very modern millennial fuck me.]

Probably a good idea. I've gotten better at first aid since I started hanging around with Toby. [He adds, cheerfully.] She can heal from just about anything, but the rest of us still need band-aids sometimes. Or you know, a visit to Duke Torquil's healer when we get shot or stabbed or bitten or worse.

[He hauls the bandages and first aid supplies out while Quentin curses. He tries to remember the last time patched him that wasn't himself or Shiro. It's been...a while.]

We used to have a healer here. Her name was Mercy. After that it's been a few doctors. We mostly tend to ourselves. I have the field training to make sure we don't die.

Okay, shirt off. I'll get you first. [He unrolls the leather strip he keeps his supplies in.]

No dying is a top priority all around.

[Quentin agrees with that one. Really, it's one of his priorities at all time, right under making sure none of the people he loves die.

He nods though, tugging off his shirt and letting loose a morbid little rain of shriveled petal and leaf confetti.]

...still gross. [But at least they seem to have subsided for the moment, at least externally. There are small, bloodied marks across his chest and shoulder, mostly on his left side, starting above his heart and branching out in a vine-like pattern. At least the wounds are relatively small.]

Still gross, [Keith agrees as he opens a small bottle and takes a clean square of linen cloth to the marks. He cleans the wounds with care, pausing to flick away flower bits.]

I always wondered if there everyone got some kind of pattern with meaning to their flowers coming out of their skin. Yours looks sort of like a vine.

[He corks the bottle and opens a small jar. He smears the salve from inside it over the small holes.] Think it means anything?

Probably. That's usually how these things go.

[Faerie, after all, is nothing if not dismayingly symbolic. Why would this place be any different?

He looks down at the pattern on his skin as Keith works at his wounds, considering.]

All tangled up around my heart. Yeah. That feels about accurate. Things were a lot simpler before I met Toby and Raj and Dean and everyone, before I loved the life I have in San Francisco. But... simpler isn't what's important. I'm a better person because of who I've known and what I've learned. I'll be a better king because of it too.

[So tangled up as he feels, he wouldn't change a moment of it.

He tries to hold still while Keith finishes up, paying attention so he can return the favor and do it the right way when it's Keith's turn to play patient.]

January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

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