January Undercurrent: Growing Pains

[lifeaftr_mods]

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 )

Comments

Castor | OTA | CW: Blood, body horror, anxiety attack Very small Shadowbringers Spoilers in prompts

[littlemhigan]

[1]

[ Castor is seldom ill.

So seldom, in fact, that she completely misses the first symptoms as they creep up on her, attributing her fading appetite and upset stomach to a bit of overwork, blaming her sleeplessness on the island’s muggy heat.

Its not until she wakes to a deep discomfort in her joints and the odd itchy hive dotting her skin does she finally realize something may be wrong. She feels the flush on her cheeks. Her stomach is still upset, and she wonders if she’d finally eaten something off enough to finally do her in.

She tries to work it off, but overheats too quickly and seeks the shade of the tree instead, curling up in the cool loam at it’s base as she sweats through her clothing and heaves as though she’d just run the whole way to Othard and the whole way home. It’s hard to draw in breath. She feels like she’s suffocating, she feels tight and sore, like something’s crawling under her skin and a thrill of fear jolts her back out into the sunlight as she scrambles to inspect herself for…

She begins to hack and wheeze then, her system overtaxed by illness and fear. She coughs and coughs, deep and low and phlegmy, coughs until she can feel something building in her throat that she can’t swallow back down and -

Red and violet splatter against the ground.

She only notices the former. Red. It’s Red not…

Perhaps a smile isn’t the right reaction to this, but Castor can’t help herself.]


[2]

[ Her coughing didn’t stop. The itching under her skin didn’t stop.

As the sun sets, Castor’s laid out on her side the beach, having sought a measure of comfort in the sight of the endless waters around the island. Every inch of her aches to simply lie here, but moving had become almost unbearably painful hours ago. Even her coughing has grown weak and she can’t help the odd whine of pain as more violet hyacinth petals and blood pool below her.

Across her back and shoulders, dark crimson roses have bloomed, some beginning to wind down her arms and tangling with the hyacinths that have begun to sprout along them in a pretty, if not macabre display. Her legs are likewise hobbled - bursts of red and purple at her knees dictating her resting place more than her own will had.
She remembers, even in the haze of fever and pain, painting flowers on trees. Ren’s fear made sense now.

She wishes Emet-Selch had turned that gun on her, instead. ]

[3]
[ Hit me up or BYOP. No zambies plz im baby ; 3; ]

2.

[thermalwind]

[He walks up the beach with the slow fluid glide of a trained fighter in enemy territory. At a glance he moves the same as he ever has but a closer look reveals the way he picks his footing, every step measured and calculated.

His right arm and neck are bandages with stripes of clean linen bandages, white set against his tan skin. In times of stress Keith’s eyes are closer to utterly inhuman and today the setting sun enforces the yellow color of his cornea.

He turns his head and catches sight of her and his eyes widen. He breaks into a sprint, tearing his way up the shore like a wild animal let loose. He skids to a step far enough away not to spray her with sand and sea water.

Keith takes the rest of the steps slowly, hissing between his teeth. A light sheen of sweat plasters his hair to his face. Up close with his shirt riding up, more bandages cross over his hips and further up, hidden by his plain black shirt. He kneels down, the usual intensity of his gaze reduced to open concern.] Hey.

I have water and food, if you want it. And answers...if you want those too.

2.

[littlemhigan]

[ She regards him as best she can without moving, managing only a strong exhale in place of a chuckle. ]

Won't stay down. Nothin's stayin down.

'Dja pull 'em all out or sommat?

[thermalwind]

[He laughs without any humor to it as he sits down beside her. He wipes the sweat from his face with his left hand.] Nah.

The cure is worse than that. You have to talk about all the feelings you aren’t talking about. Emotional honesty and all that...stuff. It doesn’t close up the wounds so,

[He lifts his shirt, exposing his flat stomach and the hard lines of his chest covered in bandages.] No sparring for me for a bit.