EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

[futurologists]

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. 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.

Comments

[secondnature]

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.

[evantuality]

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.

[secondnature]

"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.

[evantuality]

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."

[secondnature]

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.