epidemiology | EVENT ★ ZETA-12 WEEKS 3 + 4

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EVENT ★ ZETA-12 WEEKS 3 + 4

ZETA-12: WEEKS 3 + 4

After making their way through the biting cold of the tundra and the forest's deadly chasm, team Audentes reaches the swamp. Once there, their squidges will begin to transform.

For each choice your character has made, select one squidge evolution. Please note, you must have submitted your choice to the threads in the previous logs in order for your squidge to evolve.

For those who crossed the ice, there are two options. If they succeeded, their squidge has taken on one of the following features: fluffy fur, the ability to freeze small things with their breath, or small foxlike ears. If they fell through the ice, their squidge has one of these: fins, minor hydrokinesis, or protective scales.

Those who chose to walk around the ice, whether east or west, will have squidges with one of these attributes: faster speed, climbing ability, or goat-like hooves.

As for week 2 choices, everyone who soothed their squidge will find them with one of the following: small wings (able to keep them about a foot off the ground at most), a calmer demeanor, or the ability to soothe fear by touch.

For the grouping crew, one of these: the ability to heal small wounds on other squidges, long ape-like arms and hands (for hugging!), or a beautiful singing voice that can act as a beacon for other squidges.

Squidges that were forced to cross will have one of: increased independence, clawed fingers, or sharp teeth.

These evolutions may take place at a rate of your choice. Please note that apart from these changes, the squidges will not be undergoing any further physical development (size, etc) for now!

THE SWAMP (WEEK 3)

The swamp is damp and spooky, filled with rotting logs and large, spindly trees. The water level dips and rises, making traveling slow and difficult; at some points, there is no dry land at all, so recruits will either need to wade or find some other way to get through the murky water. Some of the fallen logs may create a series of interconnected bridges if you're nimble enough, but be wary not to put too much weight on the rotten parts of the wood.

Because there are no animals on this planet, recruits won't need to worry about mosquitos or crocodiles, but still be wary of dermal vines, which continue on from the forest, as well as something lurking beneath the water: in deeper portions of the swamp, recruits may run into a gangly, humanoid creature with gnarled fingers and a body made entirely of vines and twisted roots. The creature makes no sound and does not breathe, but it moves quickly and can shoot a cloud of powerful neurotoxin out of its maw.

Make your choice: You can attempt to fight the creature, but not all attacks will be effective and you risk injury to you or your squidge. Outsmarting is possible as well -- as the creature has no eyes or ears, it senses its victims through heat. Do with that what you will. Finally, you can choose to wait for someone else to do something and ride their coattails, as long as you’re okay with living with that. Please indicate your choice here.

After a week, the scenery begins to shift, lightening up as trees become fewer. Welcome to the grasslands.

THE GRASSLANDS (WEEK 4)

As opposed to the swamps, there are few hazardous plants in the grasslands. The most dangerous are more annoying than anything else: fluffplasters, the hairs of which become sticky and eventually harden like cement if they’re disturbed. For the most parts, the grasslands are grass, grass, and grass, with little variation in appearance. In fact, it’s kind of hard to tell if you’re going the right way, or if you’ve been here before. Everything sort of looks the same.

The other flora found are happygrass, which has a short-term calming effect on anyone who ingests it. On the other hand, beebulbs, long, spear-like stalks whose bulbs contain a delicious liquid which invigorates the drinker upon ingestion. Too much either way can lead to laziness or hyperactivity. A geared up squidge is a happy squidge most of the time, but there’s also the possibility of heightened anxiety.

The weather is pleasant for most of the journey, but near the end, the wind picks up and a storm begins to brew. The wind whips around and, while it’s very difficult to travel through (and very frightening for squidges!) it’s still possible to walk through.

The choices are these: Characters can keep going against the wind, although they’ll need to be wary of flying debris and their squidge’s fear. They can also choose to find shelter nearby -- there are several trees on the way that can be hidden under, a large cave many people can fit into a distance into the storm, and characters can also set up their own shelter. There’s less possibility for injury and squidge crying, but the tornado will put them back for hours; those who power through can talk their squidge through it, but they’ll still be a bit unhappy. Please select an option below to determine the future of your squidge.

Whatever choices the team makes, they’ll eventually all reconvene as they set up camp for the last time before they hit the desert.

OOC NOTES

This log ICly and OOCly covers two weeks! Characters may proceed at whatever pace they'd like, but going too quickly or too slowly will mean they travel alone. (And those going too quickly will probably have to contend with screaming squidges, who prefer to travel at the speed of an easy plod.)

New characters will find one of the unbonded squidges toddling after the group takes a shine to them. A squidge will imprint on them very quickly, then refuse to leave their side or rejoin their unbonded friends.

Direct questions about the Zeta-12 mission here. And don't forget about the bounty board!

Please remember to select your choices in the threads below! How you choose will determine how your squidge grows. Please choose before July 21st, 12:01 AM GMT!

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[It's been a month and a half now, since that night in Oska when Sieglinde had asked Masamune to break her feet. Two weeks she'd spent largely in bed, and the first two and some on Zeta-12 she'd spent entirely mounted on Gotou, Isengrim, or someone else's shoulders. But she's been working each night, flexing muscles that haven't been aligned properly in years, carefully stretching and massaging over healing bone...

Until she became capable of short, awkwardly balanced walks. It was still foreign feeling, still strange, unused to the natural shape of a flat sole, the way she'd learned to walk on bound feet unsuited to where one should center their weight on normal ones, but.

A small pair of hands came around to clap over Masamune's eye(s) from behind, Sieglinde half-colliding with his back but managing to stay upright even if she was leaning on him for support.]

Guess who it is!

[ Despite it being rather obvious by voice alone, Masamune hesitates a moment before replying in order to play along. Sieglinde has been his priority moreso than the little aliens they've been sent here to guide across this strange world, and he's come to learn to work to keep her spirits healthy by catering to her with attention especially for her but not any longer in the being-dependent-on-him sort of way. That necessity may have been how they started but there was no better time than now to develop something else as a bond. Playing with her, even in simple casual ways and letting her have the ability to have freedom beyond her books and research has been just a few of those ways. ]

—Ha? I'll need a hint. You sound like someone I know but she couldn't possibly get all the way over here without me noticing.

[ It's impossible not to see how proud of Sieglinde's efforts over the last month he's been and her dedication to pushing forward and with optimism. Actually, Masamune may be a little too proud, but anyone who dares even suggest that or already tried has taken an accidental backhand to the mouth or a reflexive knee to the groin (yeah, he's breaking man-rules over this, he's that taking-nobody's-moodkiller-bs about it.)

Of course, being proud also means he teases her often in a strange way that ends up doubly a continuous show of how impressed he is with her.

Okay, so he spoils her a lot. Everyone else just has to deal with that as a fact of life. ]

[Of course she knows there isn't any way he could mistake her identity. Even if one was to discount all of the time they'd spent together, and what they had been through... It was simply a process of elimination. There was only a single girl besides herself the right age in their "team", and Sakura was taller than her, and her voice wholly unmistakable.

But... He played along, so she did, too, a brief sound that might have been almost laughter bubbling in her voice, hands still clapped over his eyes, leaning against his back as she lifted one foot and then the other, stretching them out while she waited. (There were very few people in this place that she did things like this with- anything remotely resembling "play", like the child she would have been if she'd been normal.)

It is someone who is an incredibly talented healer... She is also a true beauty worthy of a ballad! Have you a guess now?

[At least she wasn't the type to cite humility as one of her best traits...]

Well, in that case...

[ Masamune tilts his head back now so he would be looking upward if he had use of his eyes, smiling. ]

Sounds like an irresistible Green Witch to me.

[ One hand reaches up to carefully take one of her hands in his in order to adjust it just enough on his good eye so he can peek up and back towards her with a grin. ]

...Or, maybe Azure Princess is more correct the term for me to be referring to you now, at least.

[ It may not click with anyone else (he hasn't exactly gone and told anyone beyond Kojuro), but that is fine—Masamune is the clan leader and with their agreement to take her back with him once they finish with ALASTAIR and she's finished a cure for her own world, it's about as official an adoption gets without the clan elders and paperwork declaration.

Which means, she's as much a Sengoku Princess (if not more) as her older title in status.

Perhaps he's just giving her ego more ammunition (but he thinks her ego is adorable and healthy when it's not being used against him— more reasons he probably should not raise children or squidgeys. ]

That is correct!

[Despte their circumstances, despite the fact that she was tired from a fussy squidge that seemed intent on not allowing her a good night's sleep, she managed to beam for that, releasing her hold on his eyes now that he had "successfully" guessed her identity, moving her hands instead to his shoulder, still needing to use him for balance.

Her feet may be largely healed, free from most pain, but she had lost a good degree of feeling in those limbs from nerves deafened by years of binding, which left a certain numbness that did no favors, and the particular way she had adjusted to walking, the swaying, mincing gait that worked best with three-inch feet was no longer the best way to walk... But those were things she could relearn, with time. With practice.]

Is that what my title is to be? What will it be in your tongue?

[She had picked up some things from Kojuro, but she would need to put more effort into those studies.]

It is. [ He certainly doesn't mind her using him to steady herself and even reaches to offer her the hand of his arm that is connected to his opposite shoulder so she can come sit with him if she likes rather than having to be behind him.

He is delayed a moment responding to her request for it in his language, considering the variants before deciding it was only right for it to be similar to the more benevolent dragon title he's come to be referred to back home. Anything less would feel not demonstrative enough of how important she is to him.

The Azure Dragon sounds quite fond when he gives Sieglinde her answer (and he is fond her, of course, but also now the title she's getting—it even sounds pleasant leaving the tongue.) ]

Seihime.

Edited 2016-07-24 04:36 (UTC)

[The hand she takes, clinging to it tightly as she carefully wobbles around from behind him to beside, awkwardly pausing for a moment as she tried to rethink how to sit down, (a terribly easy thing to do made complicated by her overthinking it now that the shape of her feet has changed), finally just... flopping down in a heap of skirts with her legs jutting out to listen.

She'd always just been the Green Witch. The Lord of Wolfsschlucht. But if she was to go to his world...]

Seihime.

[She tried her hand at pronouncing it, managing quite well, actually, her gift for learning extending to languages as well as the sciences and maths, her own expression growing quite pleased in turn.

A new title. For a new place, and maybe a new start...]

And what will I call you, there? Lord of Oushuu?

It depends. You have options when talking to me and talking about me to others.

In private, you can just addreas me however you like. In public, when talking to me, just call me Onii-sama, OK? [ He will be so stupidly happy indulge him even if you haven't learned its meaning, yet...! ]

'Lord of Oshuu' to others is fine, if you like. Then again, my reputation is that of a dragon, especially between the other states. 'Seiryuu' will have no one doubt who you are referring to as well as the importance of your own position.

[ Not that he's letting a 12 year old Sengoku Princess of the Date clan off by herself ever needing to demand clairvoyance that she is to be respected and treated with the best care, but it's kind of worth hinting why her title is particularly special.

But, yes. She is a dragon princess ~~and she may be a dragon-tiger princess yet the things that could happen..!!~~ ]

[Gradually, Sieglinde's stance shifts, from spine straight and legs awkwardly held stiffly out in front of her to trying to curl them beneath her, then on to leaning slowly Masamune's way, ending up... draped against his knee, looking up at him.

Maybe her behavior was a bit more childish than she was usually wont to be, but that was what came of weeks of taking care of a squidge child she'd never asked for nor wanted when she was technically only a child herself... (But there was no reason to analyze that, nothing at all, wanting to be spoiled a bit herself in exchange for what she was dealing with.)]

Onii-sama?

[She'd learned "sama" was a gesture of respect, at least, so she knew that much, even as she blinked emerald eyes and smiled a little bit, almost innocently, repeating it once more good measure.

... Maybe she knew just how to get spoiled.]

[ Masamune is very easy to string along by a little girl who knows how to pull them right. In a way, it's the worst type of spoiling he can offer her and he is well aware of it—if someone accused him of her having him wrapped around he finger he would simply be And...?

The young Date lord may be smitten and spoiling a young girl beyond necessary, but if anything, he sees it as making up for all she lost back home. It makes no difference how she was thought to be treated until the truth revealed: the truth was the thin that mattered.

...Besides, Masamune is a unique sort of indulger because he also is very intolerant of serious things. She may get indulges of silly consequence he is quicker to not allow leniency on other things that many others would find a reason to let slide as her being a twelve-year-old.

It's also important to realize he doesn't do this with everyone so she's indeed earned it, for better or for worse. ]

Older brother.

[ Masamune smiles back at her, bringing on hand down to gently play with her hair before fussing with it to tidy up and lose pieces that may have resulted as the day moved on for them. He hasn't been spoiling her out here as much considering the wilderness and impracticality of it but...

...When they get back, he certainly has plans. She will be the prettiest little princess. ]

[Is this what it felt like, to have an older brother? It was never something Sieglinde had experienced, nor even tried to really imagine, far busier with her work creating the Ultimate Magic to indulge in such domestic wonderings.

At least, she had liked to think that. As if actively trying not to think about what life would have been like if she'd had some sort of loving family, or someone to truly look out for her without expectation of what her intellect might gain them.

Of course, she knew better than to think that simply having a sibling meant it would be a good thing. Just like her own mother had turned out to be a cruel, mad being, Masamune's own brother, his mother, had not been the sort you imagined wanting when children wished for a family.

But.

Sieglinde weakly nuzzled into his knee, both because she was tired but also to hide the soft, touched expression on her face while also presenting her hair for fixing, preferring to focus on the feeling of fingers running through the now thigh length mess. Her handmaidens had always handed trimming the ends, but they- Well.

She hasn't had a haircut in months, and already long hair simply got longer. And Masamune's knee was likely growing a bit damp.]

Mmm... älterer Bruder.

[There were no guarantees at all that such a thing would come to pass. That she might have a place to go home to that wasn't her world, that had someone in it she could trust.

But it was nice, to hope.]

[ Despite the dampness that he can feel, Masamune doesn't bring attention to it. Merely, he continues to soothe with fingers gently in her hair and offering her a small place to let herself curl up and let any tears out that are needing release without being exposed and brought to feel in any way silly for her behavior. He knows that the thing Kojuro always gave him the most was a place of sanctuary where he didn't feel any of his vulnerabilities would be taken advantage of—he wants to be able to give that to Sieglinde, too.

He understands it may not be possible to take her back with him... except for the part where he only believes that true if ALASTAIR willingly deprives the possibility through their own will. And, for all of the things that have happened that he dislikes in this place, this won't be the one he lets slip by his fingers in begrudgingly accepted silence.

They will send her back with him when the time comes. They will not be able to hold that away out of reach without being intentionally malicious considering their abilities and the very nature of the missions the missions they have focus on. ]

It will be fun.

[She only has a few tears, just enough to dampen the fabric at his knee, a moment of touched happiness at the hopeful idea that there might be something like "family" waiting at the end of these missions. Even if she'd seen so much death now, so much destruction, so much blood...

She had a sanctuary here. If it was "fun" that would be wonderful, but first she had to find a cure for the Ultimate Magic...

A few sniffs signaled the end of Sieglinde's cry, and she wipes the remnants of her tears from her face with the edge of her lacy black sleeve.]

How do the ladies wear their hair in Oushuu?

[She had far more important things she could say, but until she finished the antidote... if was her holding herself back from the idea of happiness in another world and she couldn't even blame ALASTAIR.

Instead, she picked up one long strand of hair, examining the ends.]

Will I need a haircut?

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EVENT ★ ZETA-12 WEEKS 3 + 4

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