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.
THINGS THAT ARE SOFTER THAN ROCK BUT HARDER THAN DIRT: GOLD, POSSIBLY. you have her attention
if ibaraki returns from her fish fetching soak, and sticks her hands in the mud, what will it feel like? can she dig anything out, or try to boil away some water by turning her hair into fire... 🔥!!!
It will feel... disgusting, honestly. Her fingers sink in a good half-inch, because what felt solid to a stick actually seems to be covered in something sponge-like and unpleasant. Her hand will now reek immensely, but if she persists, it is tapered like a rounded acute triangle sticking about six inches out of the dirt.
She gets a good grip on the joint with her nasty stinky gremlin hands and pulls with her super strength, not bothering to dig or clear the space further. Can she tell what kind of... flesh??? It is yet? Animal or human? Would it still be appealing to a scavenger...
Congratulations, Ibaraki. You've ripped off an arm.
It is distinctly rotting - the way it was poking into the water, this would likely have produced the digestive issues that showed up at the onset of the rampant sickness. Even the most intact parts are greyed. It would probably not be appealing to a scavenger.
Some of the flesh near the elbow has been gouged away, as if with tools of some kind. This was a construction site, after all.
Upon examination, it's shaped like a human's arm... and yet not. It's too large, and both parts were heavily muscled (the muscles on the upper half are the bulky bodybuilder sort, while the muscles around the forearm are much slimmer and more wiry). The hand, too, seems too long and narrow, with disproportionately short fingers. The few fingernails still intact are thick and jagged where they've broken off.
OH MY GOD, THE BODY WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE A REAL THING. D:
Okay, let's dig this thing out 'cause it looks weird and you're never too old to want to morbidly rubberneck at a dead body you found.
E v e n t u a l l y either someone with sense (Nyx) is going to suggest a shovel, or someone without sense (Jack) is going to scratch his head for a while and settle on a shovel.
cw: g..ross/gore? lbh if you made it this far it's par for the course
if digging takes more than 5... no, wait. 2 minutes, ibaraki will sit on the ground nearby and starts picking at the arm flesh because she has no attention span... she'll be trying to peel it from the bones, and is determined to salvage something from this prize.
It does indeed smell too much like the the mess to get any real trace of anything else.
She's welcome to crack it open, but it would probably just be easier to turn it over and look in the hollow end. The cap that sealed it can probably be found elsewhere in the meat of the arm. Whatever was in the bullet before, if anything, is long gone by now.
that solution is too easy...! she doesn't quite understand the mechanics of human bullets, so she doesn't realize a part is missing, but continues separating the bones from the meat as best she can and making two piles. if she finds the other part of the bullet, she'll put it with the first part
and then complain loudly to jack and nyx that she's hungry and wants to go back to town
Late but Nyx absolutely suggested a shovel and while he desperately wishes these two kids would stand back so they don't get plague, Iba's already a lost cause and this mystery is too important.
So in the interest of keeping Iba from destroying too much evidence, he'll be watching as she dissects this arm. And if she lets him, will confiscate the bullet pieces.
Of the gouged flesh, is there any damage to the bone that could be made by something recognizable?
Aside from what was presumably the bullet wound, the gouged flesh genuinely looks like it was caused by construction workers haphazardly digging around and on top of it.
Once the body is uncovered, what can Nyx tell about it, other than it's physical proportions? He'll be trying to figure out what it was that killed this thing.
Are there other visible bullet wounds or other injuries? Is it as gross as its arm or is it more intact? Or does it look like it was the plague that killed this thing? And would Nyx classify this as a mutated human, or a humanoid creature?
Based on the size of it, the bullet wouldn't have been enough to kill it, especially not in the bicep like that. Given Nyx's level of expertise, it's impossible to tell for sure what killed it, though he's possibly able to hazard a general guess.
There's no further sign of injury. It is not quite as gross as the arm, as it hasn't been exposed to quite as much water, but it definitely has seen some decomposition. It looks to have been dead a decent while.
If pressed, he'd probably call it some form of human... Barely.
So... assuming they do, in fact, hunt down a shovel (and dig in from the shore, like you specified on Plurk)...
There's a whole lot of gross rot ooze where the arm was in the dirt, because by now the river water's been soaking into it not unlike a sponge and that's definitely not a pretty sight.
The river water follows Jack's digging into the shore, which helps wash away excess dirt but also makes it a bit harder to see what's actually being uncovered.
About a foot and a half into the lesser puddle-canal that Jack is creating, he'll come across a shoulder with an open meaty socket (thanks Ibaraki). What was once a torso is at first glance largely a mess of meat and bone. The head, once uncovered, is slightly too small and oddly shaped, and what was once the face has since rotted beyond recognition.
At this point Jack is getting tired so he's going to make an ICE BARRICADE at the waterline to keep water out because it's annoying. Also tells Iba to stop playing with dead bodies???
Hm, can they try to dig around the rest of the body and uncover the extent of it?
It's big. Very big. The other arm is as bulky as the first, and the legs are lean-muscular but very long (the feet are pretty long too). The torso in itself seems to have about three times the meat you'd expect from a regular human, which maybe is partially responsible for how disproportionately small that head looks.
At this point, unless we're mistake, Jack has a corpse and thoroughly zero idea on what to do with it. This is where that 'teamwork' we mentioned kicks in.
It's probably in Jack's best interest to duck out for a bit and hurry back with a couple of people who might be a little more 'in the know'. Science types, medical types, people who might have experience with corpses or weird shit in general. What you learn from here, about both the sickness and this month's metaplot in general, depends largely on who Jack (or Ibaraki) invites to check out this corpse.
'Hurry' may very well be a key word, however. The window of opportunity in which this corpse will be available for examination is narrowing more quickly than he likely realizes.
Edited (editing for efficiency) 2017-03-26 20:58 (UTC)
Nyx wouldn't feel comfortable leaving the body alone while Jack and Iba go get help. Animals could get to it now that it's exposed, or something worse, and then they wouldn't have a body to inspect.
He'd be in full guard mode. Probably holding onto the shovel just in case. He's used to long hours when they're necessary and is unlikely to fall asleep until Jack returns with help.
once eliza sees jack and ibaraki, she'll fly up to the area and hang out — invisible, because servants have bullshit powers letting them do bullshit things, aw yeahhhhh
she'll hang out in the trees, arriving sometime after sundown
Due to Nyx's presence, the site goes undisturbed throughout the night. On a couple of occasions, he might think he hears something rustling in the woods... But if he investigates, nobody (nor any kind of creature) is there.
She'd have much more luck, humanoid figures in the shadows, the faintest murmuring and muttering out of Nyx's earshot - but whoever it is, they're pretty flighty about being spotted.
(The second time, it really is just an animal. A fox that Eliza can catch if she wants.)
but yes, she'd definitely poke her head around when she heard things going on. she doesn't really care, she just wants to sate her curiosity ...
how close could she get, assuming she stays invisible? she's not smart enough to time her movements with the wind or whathaveyou, so i doubt she'd get close enough to see any details other than 'humanoid'
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intothepines2017-03-17 11:49 pm
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if ibaraki returns from her fish fetching soak, and sticks her hands in the mud, what will it feel like? can she dig anything out, or try to boil away some water by turning her hair into fire... 🔥!!!
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Does she dig or boil first?
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for spectators, cw: i think this counts as gore? just to be safe
Boiling away water confirms this suspicion. It's very definitely rotting and waterlogged flesh.
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She gets a good grip on the joint with her nasty stinky gremlin hands and pulls with her super strength, not bothering to dig or clear the space further. Can she tell what kind of... flesh??? It is yet? Animal or human? Would it still be appealing to a scavenger...
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What do Jack & Ibaraki do next?
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Okay, let's dig this thing out 'cause it looks weird and you're never too old to want to morbidly rubberneck at a dead body you found.
E v e n t u a l l y either someone with sense (Nyx) is going to suggest a shovel, or someone without sense (Jack) is going to scratch his head for a while and settle on a shovel.
cw: g..ross/gore? lbh if you made it this far it's par for the course
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It appears to be hollow.
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throws it in the riverI mean. can she smell anything special about it? or does it just smell too much like the rest of the mess (which she is not bothered by)
what if she tries to crack it open like a walnut?
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She's welcome to crack it open, but it would probably just be easier to turn it over and look in the hollow end. The cap that sealed it can probably be found elsewhere in the meat of the arm. Whatever was in the bullet before, if anything, is long gone by now.
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and then complain loudly to jack and nyx that she's hungry and wants to go back to town
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So in the interest of keeping Iba from destroying too much evidence, he'll be watching as she dissects this arm. And if she lets him, will confiscate the bullet pieces.
Of the gouged flesh, is there any damage to the bone that could be made by something recognizable?
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Are there other visible bullet wounds or other injuries? Is it as gross as its arm or is it more intact? Or does it look like it was the plague that killed this thing? And would Nyx classify this as a mutated human, or a humanoid creature?
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There's no further sign of injury. It is not quite as gross as the arm, as it hasn't been exposed to quite as much water, but it definitely has seen some decomposition. It looks to have been dead a decent while.
If pressed, he'd probably call it some form of human... Barely.
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There's a whole lot of gross rot ooze where the arm was in the dirt, because by now the river water's been soaking into it not unlike a sponge and that's definitely not a pretty sight.
The river water follows Jack's digging into the shore, which helps wash away excess dirt but also makes it a bit harder to see what's actually being uncovered.
About a foot and a half into the lesser puddle-canal that Jack is creating, he'll come across a shoulder with an open meaty socket (thanks Ibaraki). What was once a torso is at first glance largely a mess of meat and bone. The head, once uncovered, is slightly too small and oddly shaped, and what was once the face has since rotted beyond recognition.
What does Jack do now?
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Also tells Iba to stop playing with dead bodies???Hm, can they try to dig around the rest of the body and uncover the extent of it?
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At this point, unless we're mistake, Jack has a corpse and thoroughly zero idea on what to do with it. This is where that 'teamwork' we mentioned kicks in.
It's probably in Jack's best interest to duck out for a bit and hurry back with a couple of people who might be a little more 'in the know'. Science types, medical types, people who might have experience with corpses or weird shit in general. What you learn from here, about both the sickness and this month's metaplot in general, depends largely on who Jack (or Ibaraki) invites to check out this corpse.
'Hurry' may very well be a key word, however. The window of opportunity in which this corpse will be available for examination is narrowing more quickly than he likely realizes.
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He'd be in full guard mode. Probably holding onto the shovel just in case. He's used to long hours when they're necessary and is unlikely to fall asleep until Jack returns with help.
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she'll hang out in the trees, arriving sometime after sundown
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(The second time, it really is just an animal. A fox that Eliza can catch if she wants.)
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but yes, she'd definitely poke her head around when she heard things going on. she doesn't really care, she just wants to sate her curiosity ...
how close could she get, assuming she stays invisible? she's not smart enough to time her movements with the wind or whathaveyou, so i doubt she'd get close enough to see any details other than 'humanoid'
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