epidemiology | EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

ZETA-12: FINAL WEEK

After team Audentes makes it out of the desert in more or less one piece, they'll begin to notice the environment changing once again. After the sparseness of the sands and canyons, vegetation and water once again become more common; eventually, they've found a lush jungle with plants and rivers both plentiful. And like the changing environment, the squidges once again begin to transform.

Please select an evolution according to your choice. Please note, you must have submitted your choice to the thread in the previous logs in order for your squidge to evolve.

For those who encountered the cave:

If they went into the cave, their squidge has taken on one of the following features: a fox-like tail, an armadillo snout (with tongue!), or enhanced sense of smell.

However, if they stayed above, their squidge has one of these: a beak, a prehensile tail, or enhanced sense of hearing.

THE JUNGLE (WEEK 6)

The jungle air is thick with humidity, light barely filtering down past the dense canopy of leaves overhead. Unlike the forest back at the beginning of the journey here, the climate in the jungle is almost stifling, so recruits may want to look for refreshing Rainbow Berries to snack on and keep their energy up -- but keep an eye out for the Lucifer's Poppy, as its effects can cause the journey to reach an abrupt end.

Rivers wind through the jungle, with waterfalls ending in relaxing pools where recruits can try to beat the heat and spend some extra time with their squidges as the journey's end approaches. Like the other biomes, there are no creatures here -- no birds, no bugs, no jungle cats -- but that doesn't mean that recruits can leave their guard down entirely. Apart from various poison plants (such as the Beezlebulb and the Malboro) other hazards to look out for include slippery, moss-covered ground cover that may cause a hapless recruit to lose their footing, and the dangers of heat exhaustion.

Unlike the previous biomes, there is no major choice for recruits to make here. Instead, they must bathe their squidge in the Wellspring, a bubbling, faintly glowing pool of water in the depths of the jungle. The Wellspring is responsible for triggering the squidges' final transformation and allowing them to grow into adulthood.

In order for squidges to evolve into an adult, squidge parents must have completed a certain amount of tasks during the Zeta-12 mission. If these tasks were not completed, the squidge will not evolve and will remain in its larval stage. The evolution form can be found on this post.

Squidges who successfully evolve into adults will grow in size, anywhere between 122-183cm (4-6'). They will loosely retain their rounded shapes, their limbs and torsos elongating, and any physical transformations will also grow with their size. In adulthood, squidges are less needy and frightened than in their larval stage, and generally have a calm demeanor (with exceptions made if they happened to pick up an aggressive trait along the journey, of course). Their language remains a wordless burbling, but they can communicate with their caregivers through gestures.

After bathing their squidges in the Wellspring, regardless of the success of evolutions, recruits should prepare to depart Zeta-12 with the knowledge that their alien children are better, stronger, and smarter for the time they spent together.

Fyletto

OOC NOTES

This log lasts ICly for one week, and OOCly for 1.5 weeks. Once the mission is completed and the squidges are bathed in the Wellspring, recruits will have until August 20th to say goodbye and let their alien wards leave the metaphorical nest.

Direct questions about the Zeta-12 mission here.

And don't forget about the bounty board! After August 20th, Zeta-12 bounties will no longer be completable.

Please remember to fill out your squidge success form! Participation is required to pass AC this month. If you have any questions about the form, please direct them here. Forms must be completed by August 31th, 23:59 UTC.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He hadn't expected his little rebuttal to gain anything but a scoff from Keith, and so when the other guy looks at his squidge with that look, Evan watches a little warily. Imber pushes his hand aside to squeak curiously at the other human-squidge pair, waving little limbs hello at Goo.

"I mean, you're right," Evan admits, slowly, though once he's done that he chews on the inside of his lip a little. "But I mean, there's knowing something's coming and there's actually doing it." He looks down, frowning, at his squidge. "I guess I'll be happy to like, be able to sleep without this guy trying to sit on my head, but... I mean, don't you worry about how they'll manage when they're alone? We're all they've known."

The question leads Keith to recalling a conversation with Stiles. Yeah, he's definitely wondered how the hell these aliens are going to manage without some additional help, especially since they were left caring for them as they screamed, twitched, and whined the entire way across this planet. For Keith's part, that thought only led him to judging his squidge more.

And ALASTAIR, too, for that matter.

"Kind of," he says, conceding. "But more that I think they should've handled themselves better than they have. If this whole mission has been about ditching them at the end, we should've been better equipped to do just that. Instead, I'm worried they're gonna try and hitch a ride when we get out of here." He seems like he's fallen on the side of "not missing his squidge."

And yet, he adds, "At the same time, no one ever knows what they can do alone until they set out alone. Maybe we were crutches these things didn't need the entire time."

Keith is earning an increasingly incredulous look from Evan, a frown that just screams 'seriously?'. At the other young man's conclusion Evan looks down at Imber, at least trying to entertain that concept for a moment.

He shakes his head and huffs. "I honestly doubt that. I mean, whatever else they are, they're, they're newborns. Or were when we picked them up. Or larvae, I don't really know."

Shooting that skeptical look at Keith again Evan challenges, "can you honestly see any of these guys managing to even make it through the tundra on their own? What, little tunnels through the snowbanks, eating snow for sustenance? Really?"

To Keith's credit, he doesn't stubbornly point out that he missed the first leg of the trip just to be an irritant. Oh, the thought definitely occurs to him, but he stuffs it away. Evan may have let his squidge literally step on his face, but he's not annoying like some of the guys here (Rhys and Stiles definitely take the cake there—so, hey, Evan, Not as Bad as Rhys and Stiles Award).

So, he carries on to another stubborn point. "Goo made it through it all all right. I mean, no one was really paying attention to all the stragglers, were they? They're alive today." As if he needs to make his point, he motions his hand over to Goo, who is very much alive.

This is a terrible point, but Keith is unaware of this fact.

Evan scoffs. "I'd argue that they benefited from our proximity. I mean, I can't imagine they got through the swamp past those creatures without a little help." Just imagining a squidge running for its life is something that is at the same time horrifying and a little hilarious. Evan scrunches his face up and shakes off the thought, lest he laugh. "Anyways I know I've seen people go back and check on the stragglers, and isn't there one girl who stayed back with them most of the trip? Showed up partway and just kind of... hung out with the stragglers?" He's seen Rey about, now and then, on days when he's been near the back of the pack himself.

He looks down at Imber, impatient to finish his growing, and frowns rather more prosaically. "Anyways... they might be like human kids. Like, they learn things from us, and if they don't have someone, uh, caring about them... maybe they grow up a bit messed up. I don't know. I can't imagine ALASTAIR would send us on a trip where we're truly extraneous."

For all Evan thinks that his squidge stepping on Keith's face may have led to him messing up before, he really hasn't. But this time, this time, he actually said the wrong thing. Keith stiffens at the final bit of words, and it only occurs to him then why he's sensitive about all this, as well as ... not sure about his own take on child rearing. It's like it all comes to a head, and it leaves him frowning heavily, almost to the point of grimacing.

"Not everyone who grows up alone ends up a 'bit messed up,'" Keith says, trying to sound casual about this remark and ... failing. Agitation is apparent in every line of his voice, like he's gritting out the words through clenched teeth and a set jaw. "So, maybe ALASTAIR just got it all wrong."

Thinking and moping about his upbringing is not really a Keith Thing to Do, but just the same, thinking that it leads to someone being screwed up can definitely hit a surprising sore spot.

It's only when he hears the tempest being held back in Keith's tone that he realizes he may have misstepped. He actually flushes, realizing hell, he knows so very little about any other recruit's background. He's hit a nerve, he's been clumsy, and he shoots a glance at Keith that's a little deer-in-headlights.

Still, is he wrong? He looks down at Imber, who has caught the vibe in the air and is making noises of concern. There's no way the squidge would have grown up as attuned to, well, moods if he hadn't been around people so much, right? "I don't know, maybe."

He glances at Keith again, and this time his brow is furrowed, some mix of trepidation and contrition. "It was just a thought. I've never raised anything before, I guess I don't really have any hard data for that one."

"Yeah? Then you might be better off not jumping to conclusions. Besides, you're the one who said you didn't want to raise children after this." Or something like that. It's the type of thing that no one should say around their basically-like-a-baby-even-if-Keith's-had-trouble-with-that alien baby. "That's why I was surprised. After all, can't being around people mess up someone just as bad?"

For the moment (at least), he is not pulling back from the point.

That's a point that itches at Evan in an unpleasant way. He's seen firsthand what havoc bad guardians can wreak on a child's life, as much as no guardians at all, and he all but squirms, frowning. Keith's tone makes him want to argue the man down, to pick apart the bits of his argument that don't hold water, to win back some points.

Contrition gone, replaced by stiff-spined annoyance, he stares back at Keith. "If you're implying that not wanting to go home and start a human family means a person can't be capable of growing attached to something placed in their care, you'd be wrong. We're practicallu wired to care about small, vulnerable things, as mammals."

He's just digging himself deeper, isn't he.

Here's the thing: Keith can't even deny that. Has he liked small, cuddly things before? Absolutely. Sure, he's just as inclined to not trust them as he is to like them—more than anyone else is that way, really—but that doesn't mean that once he gets past the distrust, he won't end up liking them. Internally, he gets what Evan is saying, and that reason wars with Keith's stubborn instincts.

For now, those instincts continue to win.

"So, what, you're saying I'm wired wrong?" On top of basically implying that Keith's upbringing left him "a bit messed up," he's definitely nailing it.

The panic bells are definitely going off in Evan's head now. A kind of stubborn, urgent need to justify himself makes it so he doesn't feel like he can back off, but another more sensible part of him is yelling at the rest not to finish digging his own grave, here.

Bur rather than retreat, he tries again. "That's not what I meant at all," he backpedals. But what did he mean? "I meant, like, statistically, of course there's a range of normal, there's always a bell curve. I mean, there are people on the other end, you know, the kind of people who think oh, that sandwich looks sad, and suddenly don't want to eat it anymore, but you wouldn't call them wired wrong, right?" No, just weird. He would call them weird. He decides not to articulate that thought, and he's turning red with the embarrassment of how badly he's flailing here.

"Uh huh. I know what it is. You've got it in your head that you think you know what 'normal' is, and now you think you can just throw it around at your convenience. Well, I guess that makes sense. I don't know that I expected it from you before, but hey, we only talked once. Things change."

It's really, really not Evan's fault that he hit a nerve. It's just that now that his temper is flared, it's sometimes hard for him to move away from that. And it's like he wants to keep picking at that particular bone.

That comes across clearly enough that Evan feels as if he's sitting on a burr: itchy to move, deeply uncomfortable, pricked enough to be annoyed. Imber is picking up on the atmosphere and fussing, and Evan wraps him up tighter in a hold, and stands. It's too much, and Evan, conflict-averse as he's prone to being, sees nothing more tempting than the treeline.

"Excuse me," he tells Keith, red-faced with embarrassment and discomfort. "I think it's best if I, um, go."

He shakes his head, standing up and putting up his hand in a stopping motion. Evan's squidge has to grow up, and maybe he'll get over his weird sentimental instincts. Keith doesn't have to be there for that, and he doesn't see any reason to stop it, either.

"I'll go. You've got a job to do." Narrowing it down to a job like that's all it is: that isn't all it is, but Keith is aggravatingly determined to be a pain right now.

Before Evan can respond, he stalks off, tension running through his body.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

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