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

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( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[deathfindsaway]

Somehow, I can't imagine even you would be so bold.

[He keeps his voice flatter, words more even, trying not to aggravate the ever-present scratch in his throat.]

It would all be rather pretty if it wasn't killing us. Unfortunately, we... do not have that luxury. So, you'd do well to speak up.

[He raises an expectant eyebrow. C'mon Shep, spill some shit.]

[tenthstreetbred]

[The expectant eyebrow gets another little laugh out of her and the cough increases. It takes her a moment then to get herself to a place where she can talk, looking to Kravitz incredulously.]

You're the one who approached me. Shouldn't you go first?

[deathfindsaway]

[Kravitz sighs, giving her a slight smile.]

I suppose. Though I'm not really sure what to start with, there's-- a lot, I suppose?

[Though when he thinks about it for another moment, he's pretty sure he's got something.]

Actually, I'll pose you a question. Why is it that it was simple for you to come and help me when I was feeling down, but I have to speak first when I approach you?

[tenthstreetbred]

[Shepard scowls a bit, worrying her lip in her teeth.]

Because you needed help. And I could help. So I did.

[That wasn't the whole truth and she knows it, the flowers curling in her chest as their roots spread. She coughs, louder this time, and shakes with the tremors.]

...Because you could be helped. And I am well beyond it myself.

[A small breath of clean air makes it into her lungs and she feels her shoulders droop a bit.]

Are you here to save your own hide, or is this more altruistic in nature?

[Might as well turn the tide on him before he digs too deep into what she just said. Which defeats the purpose of what she was saying but at the end of the day... she still hasn't decided if she wants to live.]

[deathfindsaway]

[He quirks his eyebrows up until she actually admits some truth, eyes sharp and watching her posture. There are plenty of ways to figure out if someone's telling the truth, and he doesn't always need flowers breaking through the skin to do it.]

Thank you for admitting some of your own truth. I think it hardly helps either of us if we both don't make an effort.

[Of course, it's harder to tell the constant truth, but sometimes he knows it needs to be kept simple. Sometimes, the rules of the universe are unbreakable, and he has to accept that.]

I think my intentions are twofold to both. I would like not to perish to this, and in addition, I would like it if others don't as well. You because we are familiar, but-- well, anyone really if it stops them being stolen from the plane of death repeatedly.

[oops, who invited death cop cabbages]

[tenthstreetbred]

[Shepard merely grunts in response to the first bit but listens closely as Kravitz answers her question. Though she begins to laugh at the end, shaking her head.]

This isn't even your domain or home, and yet you take such offense to people being brought back.

[She looks back out over the water.]

What else should we talk about? What do you think would stop these infectious plants inside of us?

[deathfindsaway]

It's-- it's still important, even if it isn't my job exactly.

[Look at him, being all pouty. He doesn't seem like he has the energy to really Go Off (TM) though, so he settles back in to the conversation.]

I don't know what these plants want precisely, however. Some kind of deep secret, something that weighs on your mind... though the moment I'm tasked to think of it, my memory seems blank, you know?