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

"That's real fancy," McCree says mildly, glancing up at the fire, but not seeming otherwise put off by it. He caps the filled canteen, sets it aside, and picks up another. Before he sets to drawing water, though, he leans back on his haunches. Tips his hat up slightly, as if to get a better look at her. He grins. "Looks like it'd light up my cigarillo nicely."

And the rest of him, of course, but he's nonchalant about that. Wouldn't be the first time a woman tried to set him on fire.

"As to your question, it ain't no armor. Just an arm, full stop."

She's blasé about him looking, as she's made sure her hair is covering the vital areas and she's more than happy to have her musculature admired. Laughing, she responds to the quip about the cigarillo.

"Honestly, that is what I have mainly been using my power for, since our employers were kind enough to send a box of cigarettes with these powers of mine. I shall never have to beg for matches again."

She sits forward, intrigued.

"Why do you have a metal arm?"

On 15 August 2016 at 22:49, flashbanging - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

"Right neighborly of'em," Jesse says. He's low on smokes himself, but it's good to know that ALASTAIR can provide. He makes a note to ask.

For now, he takes a drink from the half-full canteen in his good hand as he wiggles his bionic fingers.

"As for my arm, well," he shrugs. "Reckon I got it for the same reason most folks got a replacement part."

He draws the canteen through the water, half-smiling as he watches it fill. "That is to say, the original becomin' quite suddenly unavailable."

Her curiosity is momentarily greater than her empathy, so she ignores the hint in that dissembling and presses him, still bright and interested. "So I assumed, but was it an accident or war injury?"

She's been washing and wringing her sock as they chattered and now she lifts it to her nose to give it a sniff. The sock passes inspection so she stands in the water, smoothing her hair to make sure it covers all the vital areas, and wades to the dry rocks to drape it to dry. Rather than immediately go back to her little spot she pads through the shallows to Jesse and holds out the bar of soap.

"Did you want this?"

"War injury," he replies, and it's not exactly untrue, but it's not exactly true, either. But it was a battle: that much he can say for sure.

He caps the canteen and puts it away, his eyes on the soap. It's been a hot minute since he last bathed, he realizes. Not since the exertion of the ill-advised arm wrestling contest. Probably folks would prefer it if he made himself a little fresher.

"Yes'm," he says. "If you're offerin', I won't say no."

He unhooks the shiny buckle on his belt, and lets that drop off his waist; it clatters beside him, a pile of gold and leather and revolver shells. His body armor--lit up and covered in tiny latches--comes next. McCree doesn't reach for the soap til he's got his shirt half-open.

His armour catches her bright interest. She steps back when he takes the soap and kneels to prod and examine its strange material, canting her hips away to preserve some modesty as he deals with the less interesting parts of himself.

"What sort of weapons is this armour designed to repel? Back home we wear steel plates across our fronts and chain mail on our limbs and sides, for we fight with blades." The answer is very quickly obvious when she turns her curious gaze away to examine his belt.

"Ahh! A pistol? I've seen one of these fired in the forest on the other side of the swamp!" She twists, flashing him her brightest smile, the one she wears because it gets her what she wants from those who like to smile at pretty girls. "Since I shared my soap may I pick up your weapon?"

"Bullets and such. Don't get too many blades in my day and age, though they ain't unheard of," he says mildly. He slips out of his shirt as she turns her lights on him, and he just shakes his head. It's a real nice smile, to be sure, but he's not a teenager anymore. "The gun is a revolver, more precisely. Her name's Peacekeeper."

He sets his shirt aside, piling it in a bundle with his tattered serape. He puts the soap down, too, for the moment, and then he reaches over to draw the gun out of its holster. It's a tremendous weapon, larger than the average revolver by far, and lit up similar to his arm and armor. There's a wickedly sharp spur attached to the end of the handle, and it glints in the afternoon light as he sets the gun flat in his open palms.

"You ever held a gun before?" He turns Peacekeeper over in his hands--it's fully loaded, and there's no safety. "Lot heavier'n they look."

Edited 2016-08-22 23:02 (UTC)

She laughs at that.

"I can take the weight!" She flexes her arms as she twists, showing off her muscular upper body to good effect. She wouldn't be able to take Achilles in an arm wrestle but she takes pleasure in building her strength whenever she gets a chance. She climbs to her feet, smoothing her hair again to cover all the vital areas, and reaches to take his weapon.

"Peacekeeper... I doubt that there's such thing as true peace in a land where this weapon exists." She could have been far blunter about the hypocrisy of the name, but given that he's offering to let her touch his gun she'll just keep smiling sweetly as she grasps it.

It is heavier than it looks, though not heavier than hefting a halberd one-handed. She firms her grip on the revolver and points it towards a nearby tree, mimicking the pose she'd seen Giovanni holding several weeks ago, shifting her feet to ensure she's got a solid stance.

Edited 2016-08-23 21:25 (UTC)

"Whoa, there," he says. Any retort he might've had about the gun's name dies away in the face of what she's doing. He takes that weapon quite seriously--far more so than any lovely smile or sweet attitude. Particularly when the bearer of that bright smile has never handled such a thing before. It's just dangerous. "Don't much mind you having a look, but I didn't say nothin' about putting her to any use."

He stands up, his usually easy expression turned just a little aggrieved. Striding up beside her, he holds out his still gloved hand, drawling.

"I'll have that back, now."

She raises her brows at him cooly as she stands back at ease, that sweet attitude melting right away.

"I was not intending to waste your ammunition." She hands his weapon back to him, chin held high. "I am a warrior too, I would not be that disrespectful of someone else's weapon."

"Yeah, you got that kinda fire in you," he says, his own tension draining as soon as he's got the revolver back in his own hands. He's not ruffled by her shift in tone--he could tell she was trying to put wiles on him. Years of experience in spec ops and undercover work have taught pretty well on that front.

McCree kneels down beside the empty holster, taking up the belt in his bionic hand. He shakes his head as he slips Peacekeeper back into its place. "That's plain as day." He chuckles to himself. "Literally."

"Perhaps too plain, if it's plain enough to see." She sniffs, not liking that he's kneeling lower than her while commenting on her in that manner. She may be as bare as the day she was born but that doesn't mean she expects him to do more than be honoured to have gotten a peek of her newly clean flank.

"Excuse me, I should see how my clothes are drying." She'll probably need to use her fire to help them along, but she can at least get something on herself.

Throughout their conversation, McCree has studiously avoided looking at anyplace aside from Serene's face. To his eyes, she's a young girl--a pretty girl, to be sure, with hair lovely as the full moon itself--but not someone to consider in any romantic context. His gaze has not strayed, and he has little interest in doing so.

"I meant the flame you was conjurin' earlier," he says, his slow enunciation as gentle as ever. He grabs the soap with one hand and offers a little salute with the other. As she dresses, he's going to slip into the water.

She doesn't believe him, for she knows that if she saw someone like herself bathing she would be entranced and her arrogance doesn't let her believe someone else would feel a different way, no matter how attracted they might be to her. She nods shortly to him, accepting his words as an apologetic excuse, and marches off to her clothing.

She stays on her rock after she pulls on her underwear, leaning over the water to wring out her hair inch by inch. It's a task as intensive as it is familiar and she's soon caught up in keeping half an eye on Lilac splashing away as she twists and squeezes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

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