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

[ if olivia notices the change in his tone at all, she does not show it. in fact, she does not do much of anything for the first few seconds, simply standing frozen in her spot with her arms still wound around her squidge as if she were his only anchor to this world.

(and she had been, hadn't she? for a while.)

when at last she finally moves, she does so slowly, as if her body were lead and it's taking every ounce of her strength to do so. her face is puffy and splotched with red, cheeks and eyelashes stained with tears that still flow. she sniffles a few times, loudly, her small shoulders shaking with each one. she looks to lily first, then to sapphire himself. she does not yet look at giovanni though, as if she can't really bear to, and instead looks down at her feet. ]

...I knew I was going to have to, eventually. [ her own voice is tiny. ] But I didn't think it would hurt this much...

[What an ugly display. There's something in it that rattles against his ribs, reaches into him and shakes him, reminds him of another time a long way back, tears that spilled to freely (worthless mutt, useless dog) and as always it ignites vicious feelings, the need to stamp it out, make it stop.

By his sides, his fingers flex.

It's a fleeting thing, though, pushed back by other feelings and the unwanted hollowness inside him that opens like a wound so that when he speaks it's in the same muted tone, harsh edges rounded away. As though the tension he feels in the face of her tears is barely there at all.]

Well. There's little point in dwelling on it. Everything ends.

[Not especially comforting words perhaps, but they're the only ones he has. In the meantime, Lily moves closer, touches Sapphire's hand.]

I know that, [ olivia finds herself snapping. it's honestly the harshest she's sounded throughout the entire journey, and that includes the time she'd scolded evan and shizuo for their recklessness during the cave-in.

perhaps it has to do with the thickness of her voice, how sharp her reprimand is despite how much her tears have dulled the usual softness of her tone. she is glaring at a spot on the ground beside her feet now, still not looking at the man beside her. ]

I know it was going to end. [ she does not understand that logic though. you can steel yourself as much as you'd like, she feels, but what does your heart know from logic? what does reason mean to pain? ]

That means nothing when it actually does.

[It's a little surprising, perhaps, to hear that hard-edged tone in her voice where before there's only ever been softness, but if anything it's easier for him to accept than the tears and blurry edges, fits in better with his schema of the world. And he understands it, ultimately-- the sick secret part of him that knows only too well that pain can't be overcome by logic, that feelings can never be entirely stamped out by the heavy weight of duty and expectation. He knows that, doesn't he? Down to the blackened core of him. If it were possible he'd stamp out all the disquiet and the longing and the jealousy and hate with the thought that what happened back then was always going to happen, that everything ends.

But there's always a part of it that doesn't end. The part that can't be cut out of you no matter how hard you try.

He smiles a strange, bitter smile.]

Ultimately it doesn't matter how we feel. It's time to carry on regardless, and that squidge of yours needs to be with the others of its kind.

[That 'we' is a small slip, one he doesn't even realise he's made. A small accidental admission that this is hard for him, too.]

[ a small slip, but a slip nonetheless. it is a startling enough revelation that olivia's attentions are diverted, even if only for the moment, and her gaze swings towards him with the shock of someone who has finally dared to step outside of themselves for a time.

she watches him, how he looks at the squidges, and not at her, and wonders if, perhaps, she is simply projecting. maybe, maybe only slightly, but in any case there is a comfort she finds here that she can't help but cling to.

and so, after a few silent moments, she speaks again. her voice soft and light. conversational, but also quite tentative. ]

...Do they have cameras in your world, Giovanni?

[He doesn't notice the way she turns to look at him, the shock in her face, his own eyes still turned towards Lily as he tries to pretend to himself that it'll mean nothing when he leaves her behind, that it's what he wants and that things will be better for him the moment he turns his back on this wretched world. That her absence won't cut into him at all.

When Olivia's question comes in that quiet, careful tone, he finally turns to look at her, a little bemused. It seems to come from left field, takes him by surprise. Given her responses of just moments before, it's not what he'd been expecting at all.]

They do, yes.

[Though it's clear from his expression that he fails to see what this has to do with anything.]

[ she fashions for him a sheepish smile, hinting at a favor already on the tip of her tongue. ]

I was given one of those by ALASTAIR, just a few days ago. [ the way she speaks about it, the way she even stumbled upon its name the first time around — it's clear it is not an object she is familiar with. even now, as she digs it out of the satchel around her waist, she holds it with such careful reverence that she is clearly still coming to terms with it and its use. ]

Would you... mind taking a picture of me and Sapphire?

[ she holds it out to him with both hands. she already has a photo with her and sapphire, taken by another recruit who had been kind enough to show her how it works. but without that request, she could not lead into her true aim— ]

I can take a picture of you and your squidge as thanks!

[Well that's...a request in keeping with her obvious attachment to her little charge, and perhaps the sudden change in her demeanor is one that he doesn't fully comprehend - she'd been crying and clinging and then sharped tongued, only to move on to something nearly cheerful, it's not a pattern he really understands but then he never has known many people outside of the Below, who is he to say how they ought to behave? - but he can see no harm in granting her request.

He moves to take the camera from her outstretched hands, and it's not as though he has a lot of experience with them either, but he does understand how they work. Isn't a complete stranger to this kind of device.]

Fine. Though I don't need any pictures, myself.

[Would it make it better or worse to have a reminder? He's never owned any photographs - has never owned much of anything, really - and can't say with any certainty how it would make him feel. He'll do his best to shut out the small part of him that would like something to remember this Lily by, given that he has nothing but precarious memories of her namesake.]

Oh, no, please, [ says olivia, perhaps too quickly, perhaps too eagerly, and so she hastens to calm her tone and seem a little less insistent. ] I wouldn't feel right, not returning the favor somehow.

[ don't you see, giovanni? it's not for you, of course not.

but before he can argue some more, olivia steps back to step beside sapphire, who has grown used to the meaning of that camera now, and puffs up a bit so that he is at his full height (which isn't, sad to say, much). he slings his arms around olivia, who does the same to him, and both smile wide and tearful.

and, because this is what they've been taught: ]

Cheese..!

If you insist.

[His voice is light, a little dry, as though her insistence means nothing much to him beside a formality to be endured, and if there's anything beneath that tone it remains carefully concealed, out of sight. For now, at least, he won't dwell on his own feelings, refusing to look at or examine them.

Instead, he takes the picture, clickety-click, then steps towards her with the camera extended for her to take.]

[ she steps forward to take it from giovanni without hesitation, though she does spare a moment to pluck out the developing film so that she and sapphire can watch their images appear together. she stifles a tearful smile, remembering her purpose here, and turns back to giovanni himself. ]

Your turn. You and um...?

[ she gestures towards him and his squidge, brows lifting in question. ]

Lily.

[The name comes out softer than he'd intended for it to be, almost reverent, and at the sound of her name the newly-evolved squidge comes scurrying over, looks up at him with her round dark eyes full of something that makes his heart lurch.

He recovers himself though, shrugs like none of this means anything to him at all.]

[ the softness of his voice brings a tender smile to olivia's lips. quite unconsciously, she finds herself turning to her own squidge, reaching for his hand to give it a squeeze as if in reminder of his presence. the heaviness in her heart is one she thinks she can recognize in giovanni, even if he doesn't quite show it like she does. (or, perhaps, because of this.) ]

Lily's a lovely name.

[ she lifts the camera then, taking aim. ]

On the count of three, okay? Say cheese...

One... Two... Three...!

[It makes something twist up sharply in him, to hear her name on Olivia's lips and yes it refers to the squidge who's now clinging cheerily to his side but it still brings up images of the girl her name had belonged to, the one dead and gone and turned to dust with him left behind like some skulking shadow, a pale ghost.

It's still rattling in him when the picture is taken, so that when it comes out he's captured there in image-form with a look on his face that's more real and raw than he thought himself capable of.]

[ when the film is released, and the image begins to set it, olivia steals a moment to take a peek at it herself. she is shocked by what she finds there, clear as day on his face, and for a moment she can do nothing else but stare.

it is sapphire to rouse her from this reverie, his gently shifting beside her brushing against her arm, causing her to jump and glance about guiltily. she bites down on a lip, finally stepping forward to hand the photo to giovanni, avoiding his eyes.

she cannot help but feel she has witnessed something incredibly private. ]

[Her reactions go unnoticed by him, lost in thought as he is, and it isn't until she holds out the picture for him to take that he looks up, grasps it carefully between two fingers before sliding it into the pocket of his uniform without casting it so much as a glance. He'll leave that until later, once alone and unobserved.

Instead, he pastes a sharp little smile onto his face, one hand reaching out to idly pat the top of Lily's head, so casual that it seems an automatic reaction rather than an attempt to cling to her proximity whilst he still has the chance.]

Here we are, then. Time to let them go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

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