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

[deathfindsaway]

[Cravat is good. Just go with that. Better than Cabbages, anyway. Kravitz blinks a moment or two as he surveys the other man, trying to place where he knows his face-- it must just be hard because of the mask, surely.]

Oh, uh-- no, it's. No, I'm not dead. Just a bit... woozy. Er. Sorry if I worried you.

[He forces himself to stand, though it's slower than he'd like, and he uses the desk for a bit of balance. Kravitz tries quite valiantly to pretend he looks like a cool professor with that move, but he gets maybe 20% of the way there.]

C-Can I help you? With the uhm, with the library, that is.

[ichininyaanshi]

Nah, I wasn't worried.

[A shining example of Ren's taste in friends, right here. Ichimatsu glances away from Kravitz to scan the room, adjusting his mask and clearing his throat. He hadn't actually accounted for anyone being here... so it's a bit awkward, at least for him. Besides, the guy really does look pretty out of it.]

... just sit down. I'll help myself.

[deathfindsaway]

[Ren tends to glom on to anyone who doesn't know what they're doing, so of course here they both are as they fumble through social conventions. She's like the cat at a house party that will hang out with the nervous people in the corner so it looks like they're doing something.]

It's really no bother, is-- if there's something you're looking for, I can at least point you in the right direction.

[Actually, now that he's watching, this guy looks familiar. But to what? There's been a lot of people. He thinks he has a bead on it though, and he blinks to steady himself.]

Wait, you're... the man who gave Ren her cat. Your brother is here.

[All but the name there buddy, gjgj.]

[ichininyaanshi]

[After dismissing the other man like the rude fuck he is, Ichimatsu had been all set to ignore him, so the offer more or less falls on deaf ears as Ichimatsu simply shuffles off to the nearest shelf and starts scanning the titles. It's only when he brings up Ren that Ichimatsu, predictably, swings around to stare at him.]

[Ah... so Cravat remembers him, huh? That's surprising, too. Though being remembered as 'the man who gave Ren her cat' is about the best he could hope for, and if this guy's met Jyushimatsu too, then it's no real wonder that he recognizes this face. Ichimatsu gives a small shrug.]

... yeah. Ichimatsu. You're thinking of Jyushimatsu, since he's the only brother I've still got here.

[He wasn't gonna bring it up, either, but since they're making introductions now --]

You're the guy who lived at that camp with Ren.

[deathfindsaway]

["Meeting" Jyushimatsu sure was a word for what happened, if a common first meeting is stopping the man from swinging an axe accidentally into his kneecaps. At least he introduces himself so Kravitz can get some of his bearings, steadying on the facts in front of him.]

Yes, I-- I was one of them. Kravitz. Charmed.

[They're a little too far away for a proper handshake, so he just nods in acknowledgement. Proper greeting established.]

Am... Am I to take it from your previous statement that you have yet more brothers waiting for you back home?

[ichininyaanshi]

[Ichimatsu nods back, displaying the barest minimum of manners. He's mostly grateful that Cravat - or Kravitz, apparently - isn't the friendly sort of person to get up in someone's face while doing introductions. This distance is just fine, thanks.]

[As for the question:]

Mm. There's five of us. And we all have this face. [Sextuplets, if you do the math from there.] We all have shitty personalities, too, but Jyushimatsu's not so bad. You're lucky you met him first.

[he might not be saying that if he knew about the axe thing... but also, his bar is pretty low.]

[deathfindsaway]

[He's met some pretty weird people, thus far. Jyushimatsu seems to at least have his heart in the right place, even if the same can't be said for various facial features that he tosses around at random, but Kravitz is not gonna get into that.]

I-- oh, sextuplets. That's quite a number. I'm glad you have at least one of your brothers here, then. I would, uhm, imagine it to be quite lonely without them.

[Well that was a half decent pass at all that. Good job, buddy.]

I, uhm... did you leave, for a bit? I had thought you were here for quite a period of time, but it's been a while since I saw you.

[ichininyaanshi]

[He doesn't really mind the mention of his brothers, given that the eldest two have been gone for a while and he's got Jyushimatsu now. But it does make him realize something.]

[Ah shit, are they both crap at socializing? This is gonna be one of those awkward conversations that neither person can carry, isn't it? He should've just turned around and left when he thought Kravitz was dead, maybe...]

Yeah, for a few months, I guess. Dunno how long exactly.

[He clears his throat and maintains eye contact for about two seconds, then looks away and scratches the back of his head.]

... Ren might've noticed. Sorry if it made things hard for her.

[deathfindsaway]

[Surprise! They're both disasters and no one knows how to have a real conversation! And yet, Kravitz tries to run some kind of institution. Amazing.

He listens at least attentively, giving a stunted nod for the first statement, and then at least has a response for the second.]

Oh, it's-- no, it's alright. She was sad about it, for a while, but...

[He sighs, a heavy sort of sound.]

She isn't around here anymore either. So I suppose that point is... no longer important.

[At least she'll be back soon, not that he knows that at this exact stage.]

[ichininyaanshi]

Y-yeah... Jyushimatsu told me a while back. I - uh... I'm s-sorry for your loss.

[He cringes and rubs the side of his neck as he says it. What, like she died or something? He's such an asshole to use a connotation like that. He didn't even mean it, either... Ichimatsu can be succinctly described as a pessimist, but if he didn't die after disappearing, then anyone else surviving is possible. The karma is pretty much stacked against him to the ceiling, after all.]

[But this guy... must have it tougher than anyone. Sure, Ichimatsu and Ren were close, but she lived with Kravitz. The gap her absence created must be as sudden and empty as when Ichimatsu was first adjusting to life without his brothers.]

[Fuck. He should just stop talking. Well, when in doubt, he can always lie.]

... I'm sure you'll see her again someday.

[deathfindsaway]

[As far as he's concerned, Ren might be dead. He knows very well what's coming in her world, and he promised to be there, which he certainly can't do when he's stuck here. Of course there's the factor of time dilation, but he still can't trust that as far as he can throw it, and the space her absence left is just as intrinsically felt as Ichimatsu thinks.]

It-- it is as it always was. We should all be prepared to leave eventually, or to lose someone. It is only natural, to experience loss.

[It sounds almost scripted, like they're comfortable words instead of ones that are actually true. He feels something grip in his chest, a seizing not unlike being bound with rope, and knows what's happening more acutely than he did before. Still, this certainly isn't the place to have this conversation, and not with someone who didn't come to see him.]

Please, don't worry about me. It's... I'm coping.

[ichininyaanshi]

[Ichimatsu is a pro at sniffing out bullshit platitudes, seeing as how they always piss him off, but far be it from him to call Kravitz out in a situation like this. If the guy says he's fine with losing someone he cared about, then that's that. Letting someone off for lying to themself is the least he can do.]

[Besides, he can take a hint and shutter a topic when needed.]

[He coughs and clears his throat, his eyes moving away from Kravitz again to glance around. He's actually forgotten why he came here in the first place, but he knows it wasn't for a book or anything.]

... sure. Burying yourself in your work, huh? You must like it here to come in that condition.

[deathfindsaway]

[It's still it's own callout to say that and then be told "ah so you're avoiding it with work, cool", and his face flushes without him meaning for it to. Well, okay, so he's been very seen no matter what, and theres very little getting around that, so now he has to deal.]

Well, I-- it-- it's something to do. I don't have much of that elsewhere.

[It's a space he can control, and there's really not any of that somewhere else. It's a control thing, loathe as he is to admit it. But he clears his throat, trying to move past any awkwardness.]

I'll. Er. Try not to overwork myself?

[ichininyaanshi]

For Ren-chan's sake, try harder.

[It's not particularly barbed, but it is blunt. Ichimatsu is nothing if not that. He half-turns and glances back at Kravitz over his shoulder, all of the bored composure back on his face; suffice it to say, he's got his own control thing, too.]

[He points towards his own face mask.]

You should get yourself one of these, at least.

[deathfindsaway]

[He blinks, a surprised sort of look, but... well, that sort of bluntness has always served well with getting through to him. Kravitz is quiet for a few moments, before he nods dumbly as if to just give some sort of response.]

Right. I'll... I'll do that.

[Certainly better than nothing. The reaper nods again as if he's resetting his own brain, shuffling some paper around on the desk.]

Well, uhm, let me know if you need anything regardless.