( march event ) outbreak

[officialnotice]

Greetings, Pinecones! Welcome to our latter March event and the first of our metaplot-related events. As with all metaplot to come, when and how the event ends will be highly dependent on characters' participation and choices, so don't hesitate to get their hands dirty.

Without further ado!




OUTBREAK


ENVIRONMENT EVENT: Foreign Contaminant
EVENT DATE: March 22th - ???

Just when you thought you'd seen the last of the hospital, something like this happens. At first it doesn't seem so severe, maybe just indigestion from that big lunch you just ate, or maybe you forgot to take Lactaid before dessert at Lagomarcino's (but that homemade ice cream? Worth it!). Only it doesn't seem to wear off once you've... eliminated the problem. In fact, it seems to have pretty quickly progressed to full on nausea, complete with sharp abdominal pain.

Okay, so maybe food poisoning. Did you check the expiration date on the ingredients you used for that sandwich? You may need to have a talk with French... If you can make it downtown. By the end of the day, what feels like severe pins and needles ranges down your limbs all the way to your extremities — even your face.

After a couple more days of this there's no mistaking the severity of your symptoms for indigestion. Your mouth stays parched no matter how much water you drink. It's hard to take a full breath, no thanks to the feeling that something is caught in your throat, too. Others may try to speak to you, but you're inexplicably having a hard time forming your words when you reply, and you keep misjudging the distance to the floor when you try to get out of bed. You may want to find another way to the hospital, my friend, because you most definitely should not operate any heavy machinery.

IN CHARACTER

DON'T FEAR THE REAPER

Symptoms begin as early as the morning of the 22nd, or may not start until a bit later in the day. Either way, those exhibiting symptoms will universally experience nausea, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Within 12 hours, characters will be feeling the aforementioned tingling or burning in their arms, legs, hands, feet, fingers and toes, and even in their face.

Two days after the onset of symptoms, by the 24th, the above have increased in severity and may also include dry mouth, shortness of breath, a choking feeling, confused or slurred speech, and even loss of coordination.

The town doctors seem to be making the expected effort to treat the symptoms of those affected, though they claim to be at as much of a loss as anyone to explain the sudden widespread illness, initially attributing it to likely food poisoning themselves. However, on the 25th they are able to release the information that symptoms seem to worsen with hydration, and the hospital is now requesting volunteers to donate blood in an effort to engineer a treatment. They encourage those afflicted to check themselves into the hospital, though doctors are also available to make house calls.

OUT OF CHARACTER

THE BREAKDOWN

You will find three top-levels below for your plotting needs! Again, the course of the event will depend on you the players, so we encourage you guys to really make use of these. Feel free to start utilizing them right away, though you can also do so at any point during the event.

Top-level #1 is for players to ask questions of mods, both general questions and questions with intent to solve the mystery surrounding these symptoms. Ideally, if you ask a question looking to solve the mystery, we'd prefer that you limit yourself to questions that your characters themselves would actually investigate. This will, after all, be solved ICly. For example, If Joe has been feeling queasy and Barack sits at his bedside to feed him soup, will Barack get sick? Ideally, the mystery will be solved OOCly sooner rather than later so that everyone is on the same page when they're threading things out.

Top-level #2, meanwhile, is where you can volunteer your character to donate blood to the hospital. The doctors will only be needing donations from those exhibiting symptoms. The more volunteers the better!

Top-level #3 is for players to plot with each other. Bring the details you receive in top-level #1 to discuss them with your fellow players here, and plot out your next move (and which further questions to ask). Conversely, if your character has nothing to do with solving the mystery but you'd like to plot out threads involving the symptoms, that goes here too.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[officialnotice]

[malignans]

For those with characters who normally could not get sick, is it up to player discretion whether or not they get ill?

[officialnotice]

Great question! There are definitely factors that might affect characters who wouldn't normally get ill. If you're unsure we encourage players to discuss that with us, and perhaps other Wayward Pines residents might notice something worth further investigation there.

[unforgivably]

Two questions:

Were a TVD vampire not afflicted, would their blood have its usual healing properties?

And would their blood properties be intact as well, ie. someone with vampire blood in their system dies and then wakes up in transition?

[officialnotice]

1. It would!

2. The blood properties would remain intact. However, we do ask that even if you don't intend to turn anyone, due to the nature of using his blood and the eventual circumstances that might arise from someone ingesting vampire blood, you seek out mod permission before proceeding.

[comic_relief]

OKAY, HERE WE GO.

1. Would healing magic have any affect on symptoms?

1. How likely is it a newborn chocobo will contract something if it's in proximity to a sick person? Weeps...

[officialnotice]

1. It would.

2. Your chocobo is fine. <3

[sirnyxalot]

Starting a new thread under the same umbrella so all the investigation stuff remains in one place.

I got together with Bucky's player and Nyx will be bringing the bullet pieces to Bucky to see if he can glean anything from it. Depending on who shows up to investigate the body and how long Nyx has to stand by it, it might be a little while before he can get around to it. But he'll try to bring it up somewhere they won't be overhead.

If Bucky hasn't learned beforehand, Nyx will also share his suspicions about the people who had been lurking in the woods and what other information Eliza hopefully shared with him.

Re: QUESTIONS

[oncekind]

1) Since Jiaying has inhuman DNA (human DNA spliced with alien), would she still be able to be affected?

2) Mostly related to the above question: would Jiaying become affected if she cares for someone who is?

3) Are the locals falling sick too?

4) Also just a general question, I'm assuming the event is opt in but in the 'this will be affecting most of the population' kind of way?

[officialnotice]

1. Yes. She might not experience symptoms to the same severity as other characters and would be unlikely to be in danger of dying as a result, but she would be likely to experience the full range of symptoms regardless.

2. No.

3. Yes.

4. Yes.

A CLARIFICATION & HINT

[officialnotice]

Since this will affect you guys as you go ahead with your plotting, we want to offer a further tidbit free of charge: unless your character has at least partially-human DNA, they will not be affected by the more severe symptoms, though they might still experience the initial intestinal symptoms.

You guys have gotten really close to this yourselves with your questions, so please don't be shy about asking follow-ups so you can keep digging up these clues!

[zymasoldat]

So, if characters (say, those who are ill, but not bedridden/incapacitated) were to try to snoop around the hospital (because they're super mistrustful about THIS ENTIRE TOWN), would there be any suspicious leads there, or anything shady that could be found? Or would any such attempt turn up nothing (or end in them getting intercepted)?

[officialnotice]

There will definitely be time to poke around due to the hospital staff being (once again) strapped for manpower after a sudden influx of patients. One thing you might notice is that after the nurse takes your blood sample, the person who picks it up isn't someone you remember ever seeing in town before, not even in your memories of your lifelong residency in Wayward Pines. If they're a doctor, there's no way to tell, as they're not wearing scrubs or a name tag, and their clothing doesn't quite fit the 90's pastiche. If you were to follow them, they'd lead you to the hospital lab, but you will indeed get intercepted by someone else with a slightly alarmed, "This area is for employees only."

That avenue seems like a dead end.

[failtography]

what's the infection rate for non-augmented humans? if it's in the water, would everyone who drinks it get ill, or would there be lucky individuals who escape infection despite constantly ingesting the water? mostly I'm asking because I originally intended for prompto to not be sick, but if he's drinking from the same source as everyone else then it could be hard to pinpoint the cause if doesn't affect him. perfectly happy to have him be afflicted too if that's what you guys intended though!

[officialnotice]

The infection rate for a baseline human is pretty darn high. Theoretically anyone drinking the water should be affected. However, we don't want our players to feel like they can't opt out of making their characters ill, so we're perfectly happy to let you say Prompto is unaffected due to plot-irrelevant happenstance.

NOW IN THE RIGHT PLACE

[royalpassport]

idk why I didn't ask this sooner

SO. If one boils their water before drinking it (say, if they're making tea or something...), will that kill whatever pathogens are contaminating the water? Or is there something else afoot?

[officialnotice]

Let's put it this way: if one were to drink exclusively boiled water for the duration of the event, they would be far less likely to experience the initial intestinal symptoms, but would still be at the same risk of later symptoms.

[sirnyxalot]

Just for clarification's sake:

How effective is the Cure spell in healing this plague if the target stops drinking water? Does it actually heal the illness or does it only heal the symptoms for awhile?

[officialnotice]

Depending on the strength of the spell (Cure .vs. Cura .vs. Curaga, in theory): It's pretty much entirely effective if they drink only sealed bottled water or juice/soda/etc from that point onward. The illness doesn't reoccur. A plain old Cure probably won't get rid of all of it, but anything stronger (Cura, Curaga) will do the trick. :)

(If we're not referring to Final Fantasy's Cure spell here, just pretend I said "weak, moderate, and strong Cure spells" instead.)

[naneunyulyeongibnida]

Apart from the previously-mentioned bullet wound, rot, and damage from the construction workers: if a doctor were to examine this dead body, would he find anything else?

[officialnotice]

A doctor would likely find that in his expertise, there's no way that the bullet (especially in the arm) could've killed an individual of this size.

Will he simply be visually examining it, or are there specific tests he plans to run?

MOVING MY QUESTIONS BECAUSE I'M A DUMMY

[ouzel]

& they probably should've been here before anyway, thus to continue:

Cassian will want to inspect the body (he is going with the "probably not human but may have been at some point WHO KNOWS" route as far as what they know of the physiology of the body thus far). Since there are no other signs of trauma he is looking for identifying tattoos or subdermal trackers (similar to what the townspeople wake up with behind their knees/in in their thighs). He's not going to cut into every hard knot he finds under the skin but he will take note!

also other than the fingernails being broken what are the state of the hands?

[officialnotice]

There are no tattoos or trackers to speak of. There are a a couple of hard knots, but they're neither of those things.

From what you can tell (considering the state of the body), the hands are lean-muscular, with more 'meat' on the heel- and ball-portions of the hand than most humans, as if to account for bearing significant amounts of weight on the hands for large portions of the day.

moving bullet questions here so as to not get lost

[zymasoldat]

HI I'M LATE TO THE PARTY.

So, seeing as Bucky's a former soldier, sniper, and assassin, with intimate familiarity with a range of firearms (anything typically in use from WWII through the present day), is there anything he could glean from the bullet beyond what Nyx could observe?

Further, depending on Bucky's own health at the time, he'd offer to help guard or move the body. (But I'm still debating on a few factors re: that, so it's up in the air atm.)

official answers to a couple of questions found elsewhere

[officialnotice]

(We're only letting this slide because one of your mods hecked up and asked a Q of the players in the plotting area, so they can go ahead and ask them back and we'll just move it over here. Note that usually we don't watch that section of the post, and questions there won't likely be seen!)

Will there be consequences to keep in mind should this body be brought to one of their houses?

It's possible. Nothing too insane, if so.

And is the sheriff keeping track of everyone that goes to the river now that it has been discovered?

Yes, the sheriff or one of his couple of subordinate cops can be seen keeping a pretty decent eye on rivergoers. It is a crime scene now, after all.