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

[atailoftwoworlds]

[He almost says something back but stops himself. He hasn't got the time for this. Both his and Beau's lives are in danger.

But what should he talk about? He's not sure. Although one thing comes to his mind....]

You know if it has.....to be something we haven't talked about? Ever? Or something we just don't say much?

[lesbeau]

[Man, at least he's talking. She wants to shrug in response, but that hurts, so she answers with a grunt as she starts using her staff to lower herself to the ground into a more comfortable position.]

Dunno. It just-- feeds on lies, so. If it's in your head, it grows. That's what the memories and shit said.

[Her research is paying off in all ways besides specifics, but aside from experiencing it the first time, she at least has some knowledge. She'll need to document it better after this.]

So I don't know, shoot your shot. Trial and error it. Just pick something.

cw: Body horror

[atailoftwoworlds]

I......[Pick something. Ugh. He goes through his head of what he's already said and not said to people. And there are plenty of things he's been embarrassed to talk about that he's had to today.

And then something comes to his mind......no, he doesn't want to say it. It's embarrassing.
But he begins to cough again.....

He curses under his breath after he gets the chance to breathe. Of course. The disease is not going to let him off the hook. Ugh. This is something he especially doesn't want to talk about but...] I......would do anything.....to see her again....

[lesbeau]

[For one very, very worrying moment, Beau thinks this kid might be about to confess a crush on her, and she's glad he probably isn't looking at her face to catch the expression. At least the conversation seems to not be going that way, and she sighs, prepared to do what she does best in awkward situations: be very, very blunt.]

Who's she? C'mon kid, you don't have all day. At this rate you don't even have all hour. Spill.

[atailoftwoworlds]

[God this is so awkward. He'd rather keep his real feelings about Dagger under wrap until he can tell her himself and he's not sure he wants to tell them to Beau of all people.

But his friend has a point. He might not even have an hour to live if he just clams up. And well telling Beau is probably better than some other people he can name on this island.]

A....girl I know from back home......Dagger.....she's, um.... the most important person to me in the world.....more important than I always know how to put into words...

Dammit, I really don't wanna talk about this. [He takes a deep breath. No, he has to do this.]

There's.....not a day I don't think about her.....I haven't seen her for so long....I know there's not much I can do about it at the moment. So usually I put my mind to other stuff and that works. So it doesn't get me down too much. It's not as if I'm the only one who misses people back home anyway.

But.....[And it takes him a moment to say this. God, it's really hard.]....lately, all the crap that's been happening....it just reminds me how long I've been here and....how we haven't found a way out here, and...

[He just feels so pathetic for saying this. It causes him to stare at the ground in shame] It just hurts.

[lesbeau]

[She listens in the same way she always does, with an intense expression and piercing, watching eyes. As much as Beau is usually a chatter, she stays quiet and lets him speak, nodding along when he starts to stutter or lapse into quiet. Alright, she can work with this, even if she has to remind herself not to be mean about it-- or at least not sound mean about it when she replies.]

Of course it hurts. Like... why wouldn't it hurt? You miss somebody. Somebody that matters to you. That's gonna feel like shit no matter what, whether you're in another world or somebody's dead or something.

[Ah damn, she's verging on sounding like a dick again. She breathes, tries to recenter herself.]

Look, just-- you can be sad. It's cool. It doesn't feel cool, but sometimes you just have to or... y'know, all this happens.

[atailoftwoworlds]

[“You can be sad…?”

Zidane wearily turns his head. He knows that Beau’s heart is always in the right place. And yet he still did not expect her to come out with those sorts of words. He more expected her to tell him to pull himself together. Or something along those lines.

And as for what she said…..well, maybe she’s right. It’s not as if he can just fight his problems alone. He knows that. And yet…..]

…..Dunno………I get what you’re saying but………don’t really wanna bring the mood down when others are thinkin’ the same…..

[lesbeau]

[That's always been what's weird with Beau. She doesn't seem wise or experienced, but there's a lot of growth to be had in the time she's been in the islands. She's also had the luck of finding people who say these words to her enough that she's forced to actually believe it, despite all odds.]

Do you think you dying isn't gonna bring down the mood? Even if it's not always like... all this.

[She half-gestures at his everything, as if it needs to be clarified what 'like this' meant in any capacity.]

People can tell when you're just trying not to talk about yourself. You have to be a really good liar, and they find out eventually anyway because they realize they don't know anything about you. Being happy all the time doesn't work when it's a lie.

[Damn, she feels a little bit like a hypocrite, but-- well, she's never been overly optimistic or anything like that, so it's not really the same thing. She's more of the 'ruin everything before someone gets close' sort of type.]